Ben Dutter

An Ethos Engine RPG

Copyright Sigil Stone Publishing 2016
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Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Belly
III. Getting Started
IV. Characters
V. Gameplay
VI. Game Mastering
VII. Hungry God

Tables and Seeds

Character Sheet

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I: Introduction
Belly of the Beast is a grim tabletop RPG about brutal, selfish
scavengers surviving in the gut of a titanic, parasitic, world eating
monster.

Hundreds of years ago a massive rock fell from the sky, crushing
kingdoms and continents beneath it. Eventually, life in the realms
returned to a state of normalcy, and the many clans continued their
incessant struggle for power.

Three generations past, the skyrock - said to possess foul energies

and discordant vibrations - erupted in a disgusting ball of effluence
and viscera, revealing the creature that dwelt within it, the
Swallower of Worlds, the Insatiable God, the Devourer, or simply:
the Beast.

Incalculably large, the Beast unfurled its great girth upon the land,
consuming thousands of leagues of soil, stone, and forest. One by
one, the mighty strongholds and great armies of the age fell against
its inexorable consumption.

And yet when legions, empires, and cities are swallowed whole -
not all is lost. A rare few survive the Devouring, and test their
mettle living in the belly of the Beast.

You are one of these exemplars of grit and greed: a scavenger.

Hundreds of great civilizations have been consumed, but their
wares, artifacts, and materials are ripe for the taking deep within
the recesses of your new home’s guts.
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Plenty are brave, desperate, foolish, or insane enough to try to

make a living in this horrid place - but few survive, and even fewer
thrive.

How to Play
Belly of the Beast is a roleplaying game - that means that you and
at least one other friend take on the roles of fictional characters,
living, fighting, killing, and scavenging within the stomach of your
Hungry God.

You’ll discuss what your characters do and say, how they act and
what they look like, and collaborate to tell a story - all guided by
these rules and the roll of the dice.

Most of the group’s players will take on the role of a single

character - a scavenger - who’s skilled enough to make repeat trips
away from the few “safe” strongholds and into the great wastes.
There, you’ll look for valuable commodities, necessities of life,
and pursue the dream of discovering some swallowed treasure or
digested hoard.

One player will take on the role of the Game Master (GM), who
will describe the environment, control all of the non-player
characters (NPCs) - including the Belly’s many antagonists -
make judgments about how difficult and dangerous certain actions
are, and ultimately illustrate the outcome of those actions.

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It’s best to play with four to five players (each of whom takes on
the role of one character), including one as the GM. However, the
game can handle as few as two players or upwards of seven or
eight.

Each of the characters will work together, form a company, and go

on scavenging pulls together. Your company will interact with one
another, the NPCs, and the world, all under the guidance of the
GM and the rules.

How to Play Recap

Belly of the Beast is a collaborative storytelling game.

One player takes on the role of the Game Master (GM).

Each other player takes on the role of one character - a scavenger

living in the Evergut.

You say what you want your character to do, roll some dice, and
the GM determines if your character was successful based on
how difficult the Task is.

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Gameplay Style
Belly of the Beast focuses on stories that revolve around a ragtag
group of scavengers doing everything they can not only to survive,
but to thrive living in this stinking cesspit of a monster’s gut.

The characters are tough, cruel, greedy bastards that care mainly
about themselves, and the very few people who they might feel a
hint of loyalty toward. Driven by instinct and need, only the
cunning and the grim can make it as scavengers.

Personal tales of struggle, triumph, betrayal, greed, and the

constant and incessant need for supplies in the face of danger fit
well with Belly of the Beast.

The longer scavengers live and the bigger their hauls, the better
they get at their job. Over time, your characters will improve and
command more respect, authority, and jealousy.

Belly of the Beast’s gameplay has a relatively consistent and

mechanically enforced cycle: encounter a problem or run out of
stuff, look for the stuff that’ll solve the problem, get the stuff, and
bring the stuff back in order to fix the issue. Repeat until dead.

What You Need

All you need to play Belly of the Beast is one other player, some
paper, pencils, these rules, and regular six-sided dice. IDeally,
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you’ll have a group of friends who all buy into the game’s premise
and will play along with you.

If you can, each player should have read these rules (or at least the
Quick Start located in the back), as well as have a character sheet
and their own handful of dice.

The only type of dice used in Belly of the Beast are typical six-
siders, abbreviated as D or referred to as dice.

Once you’ve got a group of players ready and willing to get

started, you’ll determine who’s going to be the GM, what your
specific game concept is, and think about your individual
characters.

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Dice
Belly of the Beast only uses regular six-sided dice, which I call D,
die, or dice. You really only need one, but a fistful for each player
is ideal.

Sometimes, you’ll roll more than a single die. This is abbreviated

as xd, with x being equal to the number of dice being rolled. So 3d
would be rolling three dice.

If you gain bonus dice, such as +1d, that adds to your roll. So if
you were rolling 3d and got a +1d bonus, you’d roll a total of four
dice (4d).

There’s a few types of dice in Belly of the Beast, and each of these
can be used when relevant to a roll:

Base Die (BD)

The BD is the die that you get for free with every roll and
attempted action - you always get this single die no matter what,
and it’s never consumed.

Advantage Dice (AD)

AD are dice given as a bonus when a character is acting in a
favorable or especially effective way. AD can come from
equipment, a clever approach or method, or other external factors.

Instinct Dice (ID)

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ID are accrued by your character when behaving in a way defined

by their Instincts, as well as when successfully completing a pull
or scavenging mission.

Instinct Dice are an expendable resource, stored in your dice pool.

You can spend ID to add to your roll, but those dice are now gone,
and new dice must be earned.

Tone and Characters

The tone of Belly of the Beast is pretty dark, foreboding, and
gritty (a quick way to sum it up is Mad Max meets Valhalla
Rising). That’s not to say there isn’t humor - in fact many
scavengers are pranksters and tell jokes to add levity to their
otherwise dour lives. Similarly people fall in love, get married,
have families, and even live a relatively satisfying life.

Post-apocalyptic and survival stories are good for mining

inspiration and narrative cues, but at the end of the day, the
characters are tough killers and experts who go where no sane
person would go in order to collect a profitable haul.

Ultimately, this is your game and you should discuss what kind of
tone or themes you’re looking to elicit. A game in which half of
the players are comedic relief might not sit well with the folks
trying to play it straight.

Your characters aren’t glorious heroes or epic warriors, but their

motivations might be selfless or driven strictly by their natural

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instincts. Belly of the Beast is just as much about exploring your

characters - and how far they’re willing to go - as it is about
fighting over lost relics swallowed by a planet-eating parasite.

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II: The Belly

When the great Devourer left its rocky chrysalis, few believed the
hysterical stories from the farmers and wardens and rangers who
claimed to have seen the thing gorging up the countryside. In truth,
it was unfathomable - a monster the size of a mountain range
wriggling its way through mountains and forests? Ridiculous.

Once it became clear that these rumors were true, and not the
ramblings of the mad, there wasn’t much that could be done. The
Beast isn’t particularly fast, but it is completely unstoppable. It
chewed through mountains like butter, gobbled up forests, and had
a taste for the densest and most vibrant locations on the surface -
especially cities.

By the time the various states and clans tried to unite as a stalwart
force against the Beast’s consumption, it was too late. Millions had
been swallowed, entire continents’ surfaces scraped clean a league
deep, kingdoms and nations destroyed by gluttonous, gnashing
teeth.

Those that were eaten found that the nightmare didn’t end there -
the vastness of the Beast’s innards were so great that entire
settlements managed to hold together and survive, lodging
themselves in the soft guts of the creature or atop piles of
undigested rock and dirt.

Even animals and plants somehow developed a living ecosystem in

the harsh and bilious cavern-like stomach, fleeing to the high
ground and terraces formed in its calcifying guts. Eventually, its
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rate of consumption greatly slowed - and the long and arduous

digestive process provided ample opportunity for enterprising and
tough scavengers to survive amid the toxic fumes and caustic acid.

Any semblance of a real economy or society has completely

disintegrated, and the many once-warring clans and peoples now
warily work together in order to keep their few remaining loved
ones and possessions safe. Scavengers fill the gaps - providing
what others need and are either unable, or unwilling, to acquire.

It’s a tough job, and more die than make a living of it, but
somebody’s gotta do it, right?

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Swallower of Worlds
Many believe that the Beast is a scourge sent from the gods to
consume all life. Some say that it is a god, or even the God, and
that the realm’s sole purpose for existence is to feed the great
Devourer.

That no longer matters now, as you live within the creature’s vast
and dark innards. For half a century scavengers and explorers have
been trying to map and catalog the Belly, but few make it far, and
such records are exceedingly rare.

Those most informed believe that the Beast is at least a thousand

leagues long, and a tenth as wide. Its guts are moist and foul, but
dry and hard enough - especially when packed with a fresh
mountain or city - to walk and move comfortably for able-bodied
folk.

The Beast itself generates an enormous amount of heat and refuse,

its flesh, blood, and fat giving off a faint glow in certain regions -
bizarre plants and alchemical mixtures lighting up entire lakes of
saliva in luminescence, veins and cracks in its flesh glowing in a
variety of warm colors.

Composed of countless segments, many of which hold pulsing

compartments and organs, the Beast’s cavernous body collects the
hardiest, sturdiest, and least digestible elements in the nooks and
crannies of its musculature. These are prime plots for profitable
pulls, and are often fought over by the more violent scavenging
companies.

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If a surface dweller were to be trapped within the Beast, its innards

might appear to be an unusually spiraling and massive cave. Much
of the “floor” is full of mud and gravel and stone, the “walls” are
piled up refuse and calcified ridges (and occasional fleshy
segments), and the “roof” often disappearing up into the blackness
above. Many of the grotesqueries wouldn’t appear dissimilar from
clay, mud, or other natural soils and materials to the untrained eye
- shrouded in humid mist and diffuse light.

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Culture
Tens of thousands of the Swallowed live and die amid these paltry
remnants of society, often just as likely to kill one another as
cooperate. Their future is uncertain.

It is a dark time for humanity, when trust has never been more
valuable, but few can be trusted. A time when babies are born, live,
grow old, and die without ever seeing the sun. A time when the
weak have long since disappeared, and even the strongest are lucky
to reach their fourth decade. A time when useful scraps, shreds,
and fragments of the Eaten Age are more valuable than all the
world’s gold or silver.

Despite this difficulty, the tenacity and determination of humanity

prevails, and its people live on. Where there were once many
dozens of great cultures, empires, and kingdoms strewn across the
land, now there are but several pockets of resistance and
perseverance.

The people are often nomadic, as necessary, in order to prevent

entombment from the constant onslaught of newly eaten terrain.
The oldest and most valuable ruins are the deepest within the
Beast, while the freshest and most savory food and resources are
closest to its gullet.

The economy has dwindled to a very basic form of barter, often

based upon what one has and needs immediately. Small
institutions, factions, and organizations have formed to help protect

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those who are willing to acquire their daily needs, and ensure that
they receive a fair portion of barter for their work.

In times of desperation, many subsist off of the Beast’s flesh and

blood, gouging out its soft tissues when they can. Its effluence has
the foulest taste and darkest taint, but those who eat it remain
healthy and strong. And yet, feasting upon the Beast’s flesh leaves
one paranoid, violent, and eventually with a mind rotten and mad.

People do what they can to enjoy life, partaking in what is

immediately pleasurable and available. This has created a
dichotomy of heedless hedonism and harsh practicality, for any
moment may be your last.

The concept of tracking specific lengths of time is foreign to most

born in the Belly, although there are a few cycles with relative
consistency. The Beast itself goes through stages of dormancy and
activity, often sleeping through heavy digestion periods - these are
the closest thing to days, and are often referred to as “sleeps.”
Sleeps is used both for the Beast and for the survivors within to
refer to night time or quiet time. The longer the Beast is dormant,
the less light exists naturally within the Belly - slowly dimming to
near darkness.

Longer periods are often measured in farrows, or the period of a

hog’s pregnancy. For an Evergut hog the typical farrow lasts about
120 surface days, so there’s roughly three per surface year. The
Swallowed generally just measure things in farrows, although due
to each passel of hogs being on a different rotation, it is hard to
measure outside of your own localized hold. Upon reaching
adulthood, for example, one might have lived through fifty
farrows.

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Faith, mysticism, and the belief in the unseen or supernatural has

waned for some and grown more intense for other Swallowed.
Some even worship the Devourer, while others pray for salvation
to end their hellish nightmare. Organized religion is sparse and
scattered, with small and isolated churches and shamans doing
their best to understand and survive their situation just like the
faithless.

Gender roles are both more and less important than during the
Eaten Age. There’s too few people - all of whom are tough and
capable - in order to segregate work or duties wholly to one gender
or another. Plenty of women wield spears, and plenty of men
remain in strongholds and care for their children.

However, because of the realities of human anatomy - women are

treated as more precious than men, simply because of their ability
to reproduce young. A single man with twenty women can make
twenty children a year - but a single woman can only make one
child a year regardless of the number of men.

As such, men tend to take more proactive and dangerous roles

within this survivors’ society - the warriors, the scavengers, the
hunters, the foragers. Any position in which it is likely one or more
of those wandering the vast wastes will become injured or die is
favored by men. In bloody battles or attacks by reavers, it is more
likely that men will be killed and women captured. In short, men
are expendable and women are not.

However, many men and women have foregone any notion of

rearing children - some even imbibing alchemical compounds (or
subjecting themselves to crude knifework) to become barren - in
order to focus strictly on their own survival. Most view this as a

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selfless act, for bringing a child into this world, even accidentally,
is horrible beyond imagining. Some would say needlessly cruel.

This gender dichotomy is not designed to create sexism for its own
sake, but rather as an examination of human culture and reactions
in a disastrous and hellish circumstance. GMs, tread here carefully
- or ignore it altogether if you or your players are uncomfortable
treading here at all.

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Government
The few strongholds that have managed to maintain a semblance of
stability have established proto governments. Likewise, the more
prominent nomad clans and large families have ad hoc leaders and
clan elders who command respect and authority. However there is
little in the way of known or recognized borders, nations, or
government entities. Instead, tribal rule has been reinstated - the
strong and clever dominate the rest.

While many of the survivors initially tried to cling to their past

lives’ allegiances and loyalties, they quickly abandoned
nationalism in the face of this hell. Over the last three generations,
a few notable factions have begun to form, but the majority remain
loyal only to their closest kin and clans.

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Daily Life
It isn’t easy living in the Belly, but three generations have done so
successfully thus far. The majority of a Swallowed’s time is spent
foraging for food and the bare necessities of life, all while under
threat of cannibals, reavers, and living within the hostile Belly
itself.

Food

People living within the Belly eat whatever they can, when they
can. Few regions support any kind of natural growth - and the
plants and animals that do live in these regions are often deformed,
malnutritious, or otherwise dangerous. Much of the world’s supply
of arable land has been eaten by the Beast, its grains and other
goods that aren’t immediately perishable can be collected
headward near the stomach’s entrance.

Other groups have become experts in raising and herding various

animals - especially hogs - that are hardy enough to eat the waste
and detritus within the Beast’s gut, and are subsequently milked,
bled, or eaten as meat. One of the few categories of animals that
can truly excel within the Belly are insects, which serve as a staple
of many nomad’s diet, as well as used for a variety of ingredients
in alchemy. Worms and parasites of various kinds are farmed and
harvested in mass quantities, especially in regions or strongholds
where having a large passel of hogs is impractical.

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Fermented grains, legumes, and hardy tubers are common, as they

can be carried or made to grow effectively in small pots, allowing
someone to consume their typical calories in butter, beer, fat, meat,
fungus, potatoes, and the rare leafy vegetable. Large stockpiles of
spices, sugars, and more hardy vegetables (such as peppers and
various trees), are often uncovered in silos and granaries that were
eaten whole, their sealed and well-masoned exteriors preventing
digestion within the Beast’s stomach.

Such finds are often the most valuable hauls that a salvager can
muster, so coveted that they’re rarely sold or traded, cherished and
guarded against prying hands and hungry mouths.

Throughout their lives, nearly everyone has been forced to

consume the meat and fluids of the Beast - sometimes for days,
weeks, or even months. It tastes horrible, but is surprisingly
nutritious and sustaining. It’s well known to corrupt the mind of
anyone who maintains such a diet for long.

Water

Most survivors don’t drink fresh water. The fluids that they do
imbibe are largely byproducts of the food that they eat - blood,
meat, bugs, various fungi, and the many parasitic creatures that
feast off of the Beast itself.

That being said, the entrails of the Devourer are large enough to
occasionally form clouds and rain, with the pure and clean water
viewed as a boon by many or as suspicious and tainted by others.
In its inexorable slog through the surface of the world, the
Insatiable God has engorged upon many lakes and rivers, often

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trapping pools of water in areas of stone and wood that are slow to
evaporate and digest in the humid atmosphere.

These sources of water are occasionally found and harvested, but

few understand what makes some water safe to drink and other
water prone to illness. It is generally regarded as much safer to
simply drink hog’s milk and be done with it.

Light and Fire

Many regions of the Beast’s entrails glow with an alien

luminescence - often in warm colors of red and orange, but
sometimes with sheer brilliance of purple and green. The
innumerable chemical reactions within the Belly lead to some
bizarre effects, and the countless parasites and plants and fungi that
have attached to the great Beast’s innards have mutated beyond
recognition.

Much of the Belly is shrouded in darkness, a few lances of light

brought by the occasional bright polyp or wayward scavenger’s
lantern. However, the fats and oils inherent in the walls and
structures of the Evergut are easy to burn, and burn brightly.

Scavengers and strongholds alike often cultivate living and

glowing plants and creatures - insects akin to fireflies and
mushrooms that pour light from their cracked caps - to burning
large lanterns fueled by the fat of the Beast itself. When trees,
fabrics, or other flammable waste is discovered - too soiled or
digested to be repurposed into a more permanent tool - it is put to
use as torches, lanterns, cooking fires, or the fuel for the few
smelters dotting the strongholds across the caverns.

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Scavengers have grown accustomed to seeing in relatively low

light, and would find the brightness of the sun painful and harsh to
their eyes. Lanterns, candles, and weakly glowing lights are
preferred over the white hot flare of torches.

Dress

The entirety of the Beast’s body is warm, humid, and temperate.

While it doesn’t possesses a discernible climate, it does develop
fog, small clouds, and even rains clearwater from time to time.

While the weather is tame, it is anything but comfortable. People

are forced to wear fabrics and materials that are resistant to rot and
the constant, insidious decay from the Beast’s internal juices. Oiled
and waxed leathers, wool, and even cured wood and bones make
for suitable dress and armor. Those who have had to barter away
more of their belongings often have little to wear, and slowly
develop blisters, sores, and open wounds on their body from the
digestive fumes in the air.

Many have learned from this, especially those that have been
bileborn, and can tolerate the dissolving influence of the Beast
better than most. Masks to cover the sensitive facial tissues, and to
hopefully filter some of the moisture out of the air before it reaches
the lungs, have become ubiquitous throughout all of the sustaining
cultures dwelling within the Belly.

Few people have more than one or two outfits that they wear in
their daily life, and might possess a decorative piece of attire
reserved and well protected for only the most special occasions,

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such as weddings or funerals. As the society within the Beast is

built upon limited resources, reusability, and scavenged bits, nearly
all of their complete clothes are cobbled together from pieces that
have been farmed from animals or salvaged.

Directions

Over the years the Swallowed have developed a rudimentary

system of directions. The cardinal directions used during the Eaten
Age are no longer practical, and often impossible to discern within
the Belly’s massive, cavernous innards. Instead, scavengers and
their kin determine directions based upon the Beast itself - which
direction its head, ribs, and tail are.

Something headward means that it is closer to the Beast’s head

than where you are now, transversely something tailward is closer
to the deeper, danker parts of the enormous creature. Pointing
ribward can mean either side of the Beast’s ribs and periphery,
with right and left distinctions as if from the perspective of the
creature’s own head. Occasionally, upper and lower are used to
delineate a fork or altitude shift in the Belly.

For example, a scavenger might say that something is “right rib

by headward”, meaning it is closer to the Beast’s right set of ribs,
and up toward its head, in relation to the scavenger’s current
location.

Scavengers - and Swallowed in general - have become

exceptionally apt at describing the rough look and size of things,
highlighting what makes it distinct and memorable from the rest of
its surroundings. It isn’t unusual for a stronghold to give directions

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based on some key landmarks which all but the blindest scavengers
would be able to follow without incident.

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Strongholds
Entire mansions, churches, castles, and cities were swallowed
whole by the Insatiable One. As such, a great many of these sturdy
edifices have remained - at least partially - intact. The most
impressive of these have served as epicenters of community,
infighting, and struggle, as various groups attempt to control,
maintain, and repair them.

While even the hardest stone slowly erodes within the Beast, truly
impressive relics of the Eaten Age serve as bastions of hope and
safety in the otherwise horrific wastes. The most prominent
strongholds have developed around these points of light, cropping
up as small and well defended hamlets.

The Belly’s denizens - desperate and violent - are often its most
dangerous. As such, strongholds are wary of allowing newcomers,
and their populations grow painfully slowly. Scavengers are often
only as successful as their reputation, and trust is paramount
between the Swallowed.

Scavengers who have done well to gain a stronghold’s trust are

often viewed with respect, or as a necessary evil, traveling between
several locations, trading their wares, and coordinating for pulls.

Other strongholds are mobile, built out of light and easily

transportable materials - such as tents and littered wagons. These
strongholds can pop up over the course of several hours, and
dramatically alter the scale of power in a region.

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Due to the sprawling, cavernous infrastructure of the Beast’s

befuddling organs and arteries, many strongholds are able to build
in areas that are far more vertical or inclined than traditional cities
and settlements. The upward sloping ribs of the gullet, nestled
between the natural cracks and crannies there, make for warm and
safe lodgings, even if built precariously over a several hundred
pace drop.

Some strongholds and temporary bases of reavers and scavengers

are built affixed to the upper regions of the Beast’s flesh, dangling
or mounted in such a way as to be inaccessible from the ground.
Traveling scavengers need to be aware of a potential attack from
any angle or altitude.

In recent times, the proliferation of such strongholds, and the

growing of their communities, has been cause for larger scale
skirmishes and bloodshed, as the already limited resources are
pushed to the breaking point as the population stabilizes.

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Technology
Prior to the Devouring, the realms possessed a wide array of
technology and scientific prowess. Some of the clans were on the
verge of mastering iron and alloy metallurgy, while others had
established enormous empires that stretched across continents and
possessed massive architectural and engineering works.

As a rule of thumb, the time before can be roughly modeled after

the late Byzantine Empire through the twelfth century, with a few
powerful and advanced empires and an assortment of clans and
tribes that were in various stages of Bronze to Iron Ages.

Since only the world’s smartest, bravest, and toughest managed to

survive - much of that technological knowledge has been kept in
some isolated cases, allowing for specialized engineers, doctors,
alchemists, and metallurgists. However, most technology within
the Belly is geared toward no-nonsense practicality, favoring
things that are tough, easy to repair, or highly disposable.
Ceramics, pottery, and things that make use of the naturally
calcifying soils and properties of the Beast’s stomach are
incredibly common, as is the use of animal parts - leather, sinew,
bladders, and bone.

Metalwork is a highly prized skill, with a heavy preference for

bronze over most types of steel and iron, primarily due to its
ability to resist corrosion and be worked cold. Certain alloys of
bronze have secret formulas, with some legendary weapons
capable of holding an edge and sheen even after years of exposure
to the Beast’s caustic innards. The most famous and valuable form

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of iron is known as cured steel - harder and sharper than bronze,

but just as resilient and resistant to corrosion. Few forges can get
hot enough to manipulate it - so much of it is left in its original
form.

Great care is taken to preserve metal objects, constantly applying

grease, wax, oil, and other sealants over it - while ensuring sturdy
and dry scabbards and sheaths are the norm. This has led to a
proliferation of bone, glass, and stone-tipped weapons, especially
semi-disposable weaponry such as arrows. One of the most
commonly used melee weapons is a form of axe, in which a simple
club is affixed with small but highly sharp pieces of glass or
obsidian, as it is more than capable of cutting or puncturing
through a foe at a hundredth the cost of a metal variation.

Small scale engineering has become more common in the last

twenty years, primarily realized as self-powered mills and
mechanisms. The Beast’s breath and natural flowing interior allow
for constantly churning production, put to excellent use for refining
grain, or the shaping, heating, and curing of clay.

Most new structures are built out of wattle and daub - as the raw
materials are in exceeding abundance within the Beast’s stomach.
However, the occasional new wood, brick, or even stone structure
is occasionally found. The natural movements of the enormous
creature make laying solid foundations (and therefore large
constructions) incredibly difficult.

Much more advanced and atypical technology can be found in the

World Eater’s gut, deep in the layers of ruins that have been long
swallowed. In such dangerous places, overflowing with digestive
juices, the bravest and most talented scavengers are able to bring
up prized possessions and marvels of technology - such as
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sextants, rudimentary optics, advanced alchemical distillation

equipment, siege weapons, simple machines, and other marvels
that the Swallowed have never seen.

Cannibals
Some of the Swallowed have descended so far into debauchery,
bloodlust, or desperation that they have developed a habit - and a
taste - for human flesh.

Cannibals roam through the Belly, often in small packs of

dangerous murderers and foul folk, prowling for any unsuspecting
nomads, scavengers, or lesser strongholds with which they can
attack - and eat. While some didn’t willfully choose to become
cannibals, the social stigma is so great that they are often exiled
from strongholds and reviled by nomads. They’re forced to work
and live with other cannibals, hunting down their human prey.

There is nothing quite so terrifying or dangerous as being pursued

by a cabal of highly intelligent maneaters, a fear many scavengers
know well. The most dangerous of all are those who have resorted
to feasting off of the Beast itself, driving them incoherently mad
with bloodlust.

Reavers
Raiders, murderers, thieves, brigands, and cutthroats - reavers are
nefarious men and women who assault whoever they can. They
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believe that the common laws of courtesy and civility have no

bearing in the Belly, and do whatever they wish to prolong their
short and bloody lives.

Reavers are especially dangerous to scavengers, as they often wait

for the scavengers to complete a pull, gather their haul, and then
strike when they are slow and fat with valuable salvage. Similarly,
reavers will attack caravans, foragers, and even strongholds if their
numbers grow to great enough strength. Reavers typically invest
the majority of their spoils in tools of combat, and take what they
can when they can.

Most scavengers do their best to simply avoid these savage killers,

however the two groups invariably come to blows when they cross
paths. The line blurs between organized groups of reavers and
nomadic warparties, but the primary difference is that reavers are
rarely related to one another in any way other than a shared love of
bloodshed.

It can be tempting for angry, violent youths to join up with a

reaving party for the promise of spoils, a life with purpose, and to
exude some semblance of power and control over an often
hopeless destiny. Scavengers too, especially who’ve found more
pleasure in killing than pulling, sometimes devolve into reavers -
preying upon their former comrades.

These traitors are considered the most deplorable, the most devilish
of all by other scavengers. They know the way scavengers operate,
the way they think, when they’re weakest and when to strike. If
scavengers engage in battle with reavers known to be former
comrades, it is incredibly unlikely any will will be left alive.

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Slavery
Slavery is an insidious, widespread disease throughout the
swallowed. When physical manifestations of wealth are extremely
limited, the powerful and cruel turn to controlling others. While
most strongholds and nomadic clans are familial and share a
common kinship with one another, some are large and powerful
enough to support a slave-driven economy.

Many of the older strongholds, united under powerful leaders or a

common ancestry during the Eaten Age, have institutionalized
slavery to such extensive levels that it is considered completely
moral and normal. The constant breeding of new slaves used in
myriad ways - from the laborious to the downright unsavory - is
seen as one of the few methods these swallowed “empires” can
retain control over their territory.

In recent memory, more than one slave army has been deployed to
combat the nomadic clans and lesser strongholds in a region,
claiming many lives and shifting the balance of power. Scavengers
must navigate this dangerous territory, both evading the slave
stockades and avoiding angering or interfering with the slave trade.

Dedicated cabals of slavers have begun to emerge, not dissimilar

from reavers, with the express intent of capturing swaths of
profitable slaves to be delivered to these powerhouses of
corruption. The fate of the captured is often a short, miserable,
tormented life.

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Relationships
Not all hope and love is lost among the Swallowed. Indeed, such a
desperate and difficult life makes the tender warmth of love feel
like a white hot fire raging within their downtrodden spirits. No
other time in human history has the need of caring relationships,
loyalty, love, and the bonds of family been more important or more
relevant to its culture.

Scavengers are most often motivated by a personal relationship

and their own natural instincts. Driven by the needs of their
community, the safety of their family, or the camaraderie of their
friends, these brave men and women venture off into the boiling
darkness in the hopes that they can improve not only their life, but
the lives of their loved ones.

The Gross Factor

How macabre, brutal, and slimy you want your rendition of the
Belly to be is entirely up to your group. The point of telling stories
in a place like the Evergut is that it serves as a clear and strong
impetus for scavengers to exist: it’s a brutal, post-apocalyptic,
medieval world hyper focused on survival. It isn’t about heroics, it
isn’t about slaying the mythological creature, and it isn’t about
swimming through giant veins or trying to hack through an abscess
the size of a boulder.

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It’s about the dangerous lives of the scavengers, their relationships,

and the interplay between civilization and our feral nature as
humans. When put under pressure, do your characters snap, or do
they maintain a sense of dignity? The Evergut can be used more as
a backdrop (although many players would cry “It could never be
anything as subtle as a backdrop!”). The characters are, for all
intents and purposes, moving through a massive cave complex.
Sure, the walls are made out of chitin or bone or flesh instead of
rock, but is fleshy chitin so different from algae-slicked stone?

The descriptors and themes inherent in the Evergut are of constant

twilight and darkness, the insidiously caustic and hostile
environment, that you can always go deeper and deeper into an
ever-worsening nightmare, and that the best hauls are in the
blackest depths. If you’re familiar with sword and sorcery or other
RPG tropes, this isn’t unfamiliar territory.

Some elements of the Evergut and the Swallowed culture is

irrevocably nasty for some folks, it crosses a line that they’d rather
not cross. That’s fine - and part of the reason it is so important to
discuss with your group before hand. More advice on that in
Getting Started.

The Belly Recap

The last remnants of humanity survive deep within the bowels of

an incomprehensibly worm called the Beast. The many great
Empires and nations peaked around 12th century level
technology, but their treasures and resources have all been
swallowed.

The characters are scavengers, brave (or insane) people who

delve deeper into the Evergut in search of valuable loot and the

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necessities of life, driven by their natural Instincts and the need

to survive.

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III: Getting Started

Let’s go over how to actually get a Belly of the Beast game
started, including agreeing upon a game concept and the basics of
the game’s rules.

Game Concept
While Belly of the Beast assumes that your characters will be
scavengers looking for valuable hauls in the swallowed ruins, it
helps to have a more narrowly focused game concept to base your
characters, challenges, and stories on.

As a group, discuss the kinds of things that you’re looking for

accomplishing in the game, starting out with what your characters’
company is doing - specifically - and where exactly they’re doing
it.

This is called your game’s purpose and place.

Purpose and Place

Your game’s purpose is the agreed upon goal or motivations for

your characters. While each character is individually motivated to
become a scavenger - you need to agree as a group what your
specific company’s purpose is.
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Are you teaming up to go after one legendary and rare piece of

loot? Are you trying to get by in a region overwhelmed by thieves
and reavers? Are you loyal to a particular stronghold, and are
trying to scavenge basic supplies for them?

This generally leads into your characters’ place, or where exactly

they’re fulfilling their purpose. You can start out pretty broad and
vague, but narrow it down to give the GM and players some focus
for their foreground, background, and initial story arcs.

A group of characters hundreds of leagues deep in the Beast’s

stomach, searching through some of the earliest swallowed ruins,
will describe a much different place than the same group operating
out of a stronghold close to the creature’s maw.

Deeper Starting Questions

Some groups are fascinated by world building, and want to connect
their characters to as many NPCs, locations, and interesting
backstory arcs as possible. This effort often yields fantastic results
if everyone’s on board. If your group fits this description, it is
highly recommended to refer to the Starting Questions section on
page XX.

Color

Agreeing upon your game’s color - its tone, pace, and general
subject matter - helps keep everyone on the same page. Think
about what kind of stories you want to create, what kind of
characters fit within those stories, and what kind of events,
obstacles, and actions elicit that type of experience.
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You don’t need to go into a lot of depth, simply agreeing upon a

“light-hearted, dysfunctional family” color works fine, or similarly
a game that’s “dark and gritty, where we’re down to our last
resources.”

Rules Basics
Any time that your character attempts a Task, or an action that:

1. has a chance of failure, and

2. bears narrative weight

you have to roll dice to determine their level of success. Similarly,

the Enemies that you fight are treated just like Tasks. Multiple
related Tasks - and sometimes Enemies - make up a Scene.

Only players ever roll dice, the GM never rolls.

Characters can accomplish most of their typical activities without

issue, and should only roll for Tasks - not everyday actions. Tasks
are often risky, dangerous, or difficult, and exist to put pressure on
both the characters and their story.

Kicking down a door isn’t a Task - unless that door blocks your
path of escape as you’re about to be caught by a group of ravenous
cannibals.

You can never roll more than 10d at a time.

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All rolls start with one free base die (1BD), and can add in
Advantage Dice (AD) and Instinct Dice (ID). You can never spend
more than 5 ID on a single roll.

Each Task has a Difficulty. To successfully overcome a Task, you

have to roll successes equal to or greater than the Task’s
Difficulty.

Successes are defined by each dice’s face value (1-6), if your roll
is high enough it generates one success. Which numbers count as
successes depend upon your Skill and its Skill Rank - the better
you are at a Skill the more faces per die count as a success.

A Skill with a Rotten Rank will only count as a success on a 6,

while a Skill with a Brilliant Rank will count as a success on any
roll of 3 or better (3-6).

You can spend ID to add dice to your roll, but once rolled those ID
are removed from your Instinct pool. In order to gain new ID, you
have to act within your character’s Instincts or successfully
complete pulls.

Not every roll requires ID - sometimes it’s better to save up your

ID until you really need them. However, the more ID you spend on
a roll, the more likely your character is to succeed.

Scenes

Scenes are collections of related Tasks and Enemies. They help the
GM and players keep track of what takes place when and where, as
well as how many dice have been earned or spent. It’s easy to think

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of Scenes in Belly of the Beast just like pivotal scenes in a novel,

movie, or video game - this is where the excitement happens and
every second counts.

Each Scene has a rough cadence which should be followed:

Setup
The GM describes the Scene, all of its pertinent elements, and
allows the players to describe their characters’ actions right up to
the Action step of the Scene.

Definition
The GM defines each pressing Task and Enemy’s Difficulty,
Severity, and Threshold (these are discussed more in V: Gameplay
and VI: Game Mastering). Players can ask out-of-character
questions or clarifications.

Action
The characters, NPCs, and environment all act and react to one
another. Dice are rolled and the meat of the Scene occurs during
this step. The nature of the Scene or its related Tasks will change
during this step.

Resolution
The GM describes how the Scene is resolved, and the in-character
circumstances the players find themselves in. Any final in-
character actions or questions are answered in this step.

Conclusion
The players and GM discuss if the Scene warranted the acquisition
of any resources, pertinent information, or Instinct Dice.

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Characters only add ID to their Instinct pool during this step. The
Scene is now over, and gameplay continues.

Outside of Scenes

Often the characters’ actions and stories will fall outside of a

Scene. Any time that the GM is describing the game in broad
sweeping actions, montages, or skipping over long periods of
relatively inconsequential time falls outside of a Scene.

For example, when the characters stop in a stronghold and decide

to collect some resources, rest up, and meet back together after
several hours. That intervening time would fall outside of a Scene,
and could be briefly described.

GMs, feel free to have players roll for downtime and long term
Tasks if they bear significant weight to the narrative - otherwise
rolls should be kept within a Scene.

Rules Basics Recap

Tasks: difficult or important actions

Enemies: opponents to be overcome like Tasks
Scene: multiple Tasks with a common overall goal
Only players ever roll dice, not the GM
No more than 10d can be rolled at a time.

Rolls = 1BD + ID + AD
Up to 5 ID can be added to your roll

Tasks have a Difficulty, the number of successes needed to pass

the Task.

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One Skill is always most relevant for any given Task.

The Skill Rank determines which face values of a dice count as
successes.

Scenes collect Tasks and keep the action organized.

Scenes follow a cadence: Setup, Definition, Action, Resolution,
and Conclusion.
Instinct Dice earned during a Scene aren’t gained until the
Conclusion phase of the Scene.

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IV: Characters
Being a scavenger isn’t a glamorous job. You’re not usually seen
as a hero, or a savior, or even as someone particularly dangerous.
Sometimes, people downright distrust, disagree with, or even
disdain you. However, scavenging is necessary for survival, and
those that make a profession of it are highly skilled and
begrudgingly respected.

As a scavenger, you know that being the strongest, the fastest, the
smartest, or the best at killing is irrelevant. All that matters is your
ability to stay alive, fill a role in your company, and survive
enough pulls to retire a few years before your last. An entire world
of ruins, rubble, and salvage is waiting to be taken - you just have
to climb through hundreds of leagues of putrid waste, rivers of
digestive juices, devoured mountains and chewed up forests, and
fight other companies, reavers, and cannibals along the way.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right?

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Overview
Surviving the Devouring - or even being born within the belly of
the Beast - means your character is already an order of magnitude
tougher, smarter, and meaner than anyone (probably) you know in
real life.

Hundreds of millions of people were eaten over the course of fifty

years, and of those less than one in a thousand survived the first
few weeks. A year later, maybe one in a thousand of those
survivors made it, and these dangerous and determined folk are
your kin, if you’re not one of them yourself.

Children born within the Belly have known no other world, and
while many don’t make it past childhood, those that do are
terrifyingly tough, clever, and focused on survival.

Even other survivors view scavengers as especially crazy. Delving

deeper into the Hungry God’s innards, digging through piles of
rock and excrement in search of valuables, and fighting other
maniacs on your way back to a stronghold means that you’re a cut
above (or maybe below) the rest.

However, scavenging is a dangerous job, and you’re unlikely to

survive long if you rely solely on your skill. Over time, you’ll
improve, you’ll earn your fellows’ trust, and you’ll all be able to
live in more comfort (relatively) than when you’re starting out.

Starting characters are scavengers that haven’t been in the business

for very long - but have managed to prove to themselves and others

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that they’re worth hiring into a company. That means you’ll screw
up about as often as you’ll do well, but you’re not a complete
liability.

Character Creation Outline

1. Create a character concept

2. Select two Instincts
a. Each Instinct grants you a Maneuver
3. Select or define your Specialty
a. Each Specialty grants you circumstances in which
you automatically succeed, or have permission to
attempt Tasks others can’t

4. Rank your Skills (Awareness, Coordination, Cunning,

Influence, Lore, Might, Resolve, Stealth) in one of four
ways:
a. Standard: 1 Brilliant, 1 Capable, 5 Acceptable, 1
Rotten
b. Versatile: 2 Capable, 6 Acceptable
c. Focused: 1 Brilliant, 2 Capable, 3 Acceptable, 2
Rotten
d. Specialized: 1 Brilliant, 3 Capable, 1 Acceptable, 3
Rotten

5. Select or define your one Talent, a word or phrase that

describes how you excel in a particular circumstance,
granting +1AD to your relevant rolls.
6. Optional: as a group answer some starting questions or
define any Bonds

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Character Concept
Your character should align with the game concept, as well as
work well with the other players’ characters. If you’re playing a
high-combat game about scavengers fighting an enemy reaver
faction, a haggling and socially oriented character might not fit as
well as a warrior (that’s not to say it couldn’t work, but just bear it
in mind).

Defining and conceptualizing your character before selecting your

mechanical choices (such as Skills and Specialties) helps you stay
consistent throughout the creation process and give you
roleplaying guidelines.

When starting out, break your character down into their who and
what.

Your character’s Who is described by their personality, traits,

motivation, and idiosyncrasies.

Your character’s What is described by their role, expertise, and

physical description.

Becoming a Scavenger
How did you become a scavenger? Did you have a life prior to the
Devouring? Were you born within the stinking gut of the Beast?
What made you interested in pursuing the lost treasures of the
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Eaten Age, and what motivates you to keep going out on such
dangerous pulls?

Background

Your character’s background is their early life and experiences.

What events encouraged them to become a scavenger? What are
your earliest memories? Have you ever seen the sun? What major
impacts were the cause for your character’s personality and
skillset?

Foreground

Your character’s foreground is their recent history. What twists,

complications, or occurrences took place that have led them to
what they’re doing now? The foreground can be the last three
farrows, sleeps, or hours that lead up to the start of the game.

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Skills
Every attempted action falls into one of the eight Skills. Skills are
bundles of action types and expertise that describe your character’s
capability when attempting related actions.

Every action only makes use of one Skill - called the relevant Skill
- however certain actions or intended outcomes have multiple
potential relevant Skills. Player and GM discussion is encouraged.

Each of the eight Skills is described below.

Awareness
The ability to detect your surroundings and the intent of others.
Physical perception, inner intuition, and keen insight.

Coordination
The ability to move precisely. Ranged combat, Dodging incoming
attacks, balance, agility, and overall finesse.

Cunning
The ability to think quickly and tactfully. Your mind for strategy,
tactics, acumen, anticipation, and logic.

Influence
The ability to sway others’ opinions and emotions. Your charm,
negotiation, persuasion, and intimidation.

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Lore
The ability to call upon your intellect and knowledge. Recalling
lore, history, social customs, or applying your knowledge and skill
to mental or artisanal endeavors.

Might
The ability to apply strength and force. Melee combat, Blocking
incoming attacks, brute strength, and running speed.

Resolve
The ability to resist pain, wounds, fear, and illness. Your health,
immunity, willpower, and fortitude.

Stealth
The ability to conceal your thoughts and actions. Telling lies,
hiding in the shadows, remaining inconspicuous, and moving
silently.

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Skill Ranks
Each of your character’s Skills has a Skill Rank. The better a
particular Skill is Ranked, the more likely your character is to
succeed when attempting actions using that Skill.

There are four Skill Ranks, each describing the character’s level
of expertise in the specific Skill. Every Rank adds more face-
values to each die that is considered a success (1 through 6).

Rotten (6)
You’re well below the average of your peers, and are more likely
to cause serious problems when attempting these actions.

Acceptable (5+)
You’re not a complete waste to have along, but you can’t be relied
upon either.

Capable (4+)
You’ve cut your teeth in the business, and have a respectable
amount of skill. You’re likely to succeed at most attempts, but
haven’t reached true mastery.

Brilliant (3+)
You’re as good as they come, and have to pick up the slack for the
rest of your crew. It’s unlikely that you’ll make a mess of things,
and only the most arduous obstacles challenge you.

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Skill Rank Succeeds On

Rotten 6
Acceptable 5+
Capable 4+
Brilliant 3+

Most scavengers are tougher than your typical survivor, and have
the skills and expertise to prove it. However, some characters are
more specialized than others, as represented by the different Skill
Rank Arrays that are available to choose from:

Standard
1 Brilliant, 1 Capable, 5 Acceptable, 1 Rotten

Versatile
2 Capable, 6 Acceptable

Focused
1 Brilliant, 2 Capable, 3 Acceptable, 2 Rotten

Specialized
1 Brilliant, 3 Capable, 1 Acceptable, 3 Rotten

If you’re not sure what makes the most sense for your character,
just stick with the Standard Array - it is the best representation of
a typical scavenger, and will ensure that you can succeed at a good
number of Tasks.

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As for fairness and balance, all of the Skill Rank Arrays succeed at
an equivalent number of rolls across all eight of the Skills, just in
more or less concentrated areas.

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Instincts
Select two of the Instincts below. This is what drives your
character, how they behave under stress, and their innate
characteristics that define their motivation.

For each Instinct, you can select one of its numbered Instinct
Maneuvers. For example, a character with the Curiosity Instinct
chooses Curiosity 1. Spend 1 ID to learn of something immediately
useful and currently unknown in the Scene. Since they picked
Curiosity 1, they couldn’t also make use of Curiosity 2.

These Instincts serve as the basis of you acquiring Instinct Dice

(ID), as well as give an impetus to roleplay in a way that’s
befitting of your character’s natural tendencies.

Curiosity
The desire to know
Choose one:
1. Spend 1 ID to learn of something immediately useful and
currently unknown in the Scene.
2. Each ID spent to identify the reason of a particular
occurrence, intent, attitude, place, or object is an automatic
success.

Fear
To recognize danger
Choose one:
1. Spend 1 ID to identify every potential danger in the current
Scene.
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2. Each ID spent to retreat, evade, hide, or flee from

something you fear is an automatic success.

Greed
To have all that you desire
Choose one:
1. Spend 1 ID to discover the most valuable objects in a
current Scene or place.
2. Each ID spent to haggle, sell, or get more profits out of
salvage is an automatic success.

Loyalty
Devotion to your kin and comrades
Choose one:
1. Spend 1 ID to suffer a Complication, Consequence, or
Injury in an ally’s stead.
2. Each ID spent to complete a Scene or Long Task with other
scavengers is an automatic success.

Violence
Killing bestows the ultimate authority
Choose one:
1. Spend 1 ID to learn an enemy’s weakness, granting AD as
appropriate. Attacks or actions that exploit this weakness
can either be automatically successful or grant permission
when an action would otherwise be impossible.
2. Each ID spent to ignore Injury, Complications, or
Consequences during combat is an automatic success.

Instincts in Play

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Katarod has the Greed and Violence Instincts. He’s naturally

selfish, and only entered the scavenging business as a means to
secure his personal comfort. He’s found that living in the Belly
removes any call for civility or pacificity - and prefers to solve his
problems with a sharp knife.

He selects one Instinct Maneuver for each of his Instincts, going

with Greed 1 and Violence 1. He wants to be able to quickly
identify the most valuable salvage, as well as hit his enemies where
it hurts the most. The GM starts Katarod (and the rest of the
characters) with 10 ID in his Instinct pool.

Upon discovering a potentially profitable ruin, Katarod’s company

sets out to complete a pull. When they arrive, Katarod spends 1 ID
to activate his Greed 1 Instinct Maneuver - uncovering the most
valuable item in the Scene. That ID is removed from his Instinct
pool, and the GM narrates how Katarod discovers a master crafted
bronze sword. Katarod now has 9 ID in his pool.

On his way back from the pull, his company gets ambushed by a
rival group of scavengers. They demand to take half of the haul
peacefully, or take all of it by force. Katarod doesn’t want any part
of that, and so activates his Violence 1 Instinct Maneuver -
discerning the weakness of his enemy.

The ID is removed from his pool (now at 8 ID), and the GM tells
Katarod how he recognizes the leader’s senses are dulled by milk
whiskey, and that it would be easy to get close to her undetected
(in mechanical terms, her Awareness Difficulty would be low.)

While his comrades are at a standoff with the other group, he stalks
around the darkness (a Stealth roll with some AD), grabs the rival
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leader and slits her throat wide open (a Might roll, against a
lowered Difficulty due to her being unaware). Chaos ensues, and
the battle ends in a bloody mess - with Katarod on top. He spent
another 5 ID during the battle, so his pool is now at 3 ID.

During the conclusion of the Scene, the GM awards Katarod’s

player with Instinct dice for acting Instinctively - 5 ID for his
Greed of keeping the entirety of the haul, and 3 ID for committing
Violence rather than sharing. His behavior was in line with both of
his Instincts, and so he acquired 8 ID for the Scene, which are in
turn added to his existing 3 ID that were remaining in his pool.

At the end of the Scene, Katarod now has 11 ID in his Instinct

pool.

Specialties
Each character has one Specialty - a role or area of expertise that
describes them and their abilities. Specialties grant or deny
permission to attempt actions in certain circumstances, as well as
grant automatic success at certain types of actions and Tasks.

Occasionally, the GM might think an especially relevant or useful

Specialty warrants an Advantage Dice bonus, generally a max of
+1AD.

Players, you may select one of the below Specialties or define

your own. If defining your own, follow the format as listed below:
giving one type of action that grants permission to attempt Tasks
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others would find impossible, and another that gives automatic

successes at low Difficulty Tasks. Ensure the rest of your players
and GM approve of any self-defined Specialties.

Alchemist
An expert in concoctions and chemicals
- You have permission to attempt advanced alchemy Tasks
others would find impossible.
- You automatically succeed at mundane alchemical Tasks
and can collect ingredients while traveling without the need
to roll.

Bileborn
Birthed into the bilious belly of the Beast
- You have permission to attempt environmental Resolve
Tasks that others would find impossible.
- You automatically succeed when resisting the effects of
caustic, hot, or acidic environments.

Chirurgeon
Your allies fear your saws nearly as much as their enemies’
swords
- You have permission to attempt surgery and advanced
medical Tasks that others would find impossible.
- You automatically succeed when applying basic first aid,
stabilizing, or cleaning treatable wounds.

Connections
You know people, and can call in a favor when necessary
- You have permission to roll Awareness or Influence to
determine if you know any friends or foes in the area.

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- You automatically succeed when calling in favors that

others owe you, even if it puts them in a bad position.

Engineer
What others would view as sorcery you view as the proper
application of leverage
- You have permission to attempt construction, engineering,
or architectural Tasks that others would find impossible.
- You automatically succeed when creating simple tools
and machines such as levers, wheels, and pulleys.

Forager
You’re able to find scraps for dinner even in the dankest and
darkest pits
- You have permission to roll Cunning or Lore to forage
edible food or helpful bits of debris anywhere in the
Evergut.
- You automatically succeed at feeding yourself regardless
of your position or supplies.

Iron Lungs
You’re gifted with longlasting breath, and can avoid noxious
fumes better than anyone
- You have permission to roll Resolve to hold your breath
indefinitely (one roll every so often), even when submerged
or enveloped.
- You automatically succeed at ignoring negative effects of
non-lethal fumes, gases, or smoke.

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Smith
You can scrape together even the most rusted detritus and make it
useful again
- Select one craft (armor, tools, melee weapons, ranged
weapons, etc). You have permission to roll smithing Tasks
toward this craft that others would find impossible.
- You automatically succeed at basic repairs, constructing
simple tools, or collecting raw materials related to your
craft.

Tracker
If it moves, you can track it. If there’s a path, you can find it.
- You have permission to roll for tracking and pathfinding
Tasks that others would find impossible.
- You automatically succeed at knowing rough distances,
directions, or finding your way out of convoluted paths or
environments.

Trader
You’ll never settle for less than optimal price, and you usually get
your way
- You have permission to roll when negotiating bargains or
deals that others would find impossible or completely
unreasonable.
- You automatically succeed at knowing the value of things,
where and who to sell to that will generate the best profit,
and other mercantile activities.

Specialties in Play

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Katador is a self-serving, arguably cruel man. However, he’s loyal

to his clan and his company, using his knack for hard negotiation
(and ending arguments violently) to good effect for his crew. To
stick with Katador’s theme of an excellent tradesman and
negotiator, his player selects Trader as his one and only Specialty.

While at a stronghold’s gate, he demands that his company be

allowed inside the safety of its walls, only to suspicion and
hostility of those within the hold. Katador says that not only will
they not pay for access, or do anything to prove their worth, but
instead will be taken directly to the stronghold’s leader, and given
an opportunity to sell their wares. Katador wants to roll Influence
to convince and cow the guards to his demands.

Normally the GM wouldn’t even allow such an outrageous

conversation to warrant a roll - few self respecting guards would
allow strange and demanding scavengers into their one and only
place of safety. However, since Katador has the Trader Specialty,
he does have permission to make a roll.

After successfully rolling and entering the stronghold, Katador

automatically knows the value of his haul to the people here, and
doesn’t allow them to suggest an unfair price. If he didn’t have his
Trader Specialty, he might not know that they’re in desperate need
of grain, and that his haul is worth five times here what it would be
somewhere else.

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Talents
Every character starts with one Talent, a freeform, self-defined
ability that describes your predilections, knacks, or gifts.

While Skills describe competence in a broad field, Talents are

more narrowly focused on a single type of action or circumstance.
To create your character’s Talent, just name a situation in which
your character excels in. For example:

- Berserker: You get overwhelmed with bloodlust and hack

your enemies into pieces.
- Silvertongue: You find it easy to manipulate others with
your honeyed words and cunning ways.
- Nimble: You’re incredibly balanced and flexible, slipping
through obstacles and restraints with ease.

When acting in a way related to a Talent, your character gains

+1AD to their roll. For example, when a character with the
Silvertongue Talent attempts to convince a guard to overlook some
nefarious activities, the character would get +1AD to their roll.

When creating Talents, ensure that they are broad enough to come
up often during play (approximately once a session) but narrow
enough to only be used in certain circumstances. For instance, you
wouldn’t want a Talent so broad that it encapsulates an entire Skill,
or one so narrow that it hardly ever comes up, and even when it
does it isn’t particularly useful.

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An example of a Talent that’s too broad might be Stealthy - which

would essentially grant a free +1AD any time the character was
rolling a Stealth. Instead, Sneaky might be better, granting +1AD
when the character was quietly stalking around.

An example of a Talent that’s too narrow might be Impervious to

Insults - only adding to Resist rolls when the character is being
insulted. Hardly worth an entire Talent. But the Iron Will Talent is
perfectly appropriate, granting +1AD whenever the character’s
willpower is challenged.

As characters advance, they can acquire new Talents (which

follow the same naming procedure), or can improve an existing
Talent up to a +3AD bonus when relevant.

If multiple Talents are applicable for a character’s roll, the GM can

allow their bonuses to stack.

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Example Talents

Raw strength Sharp senses Calm presence

Nimble Silvertongue Berserker
Defensive Whisperstep Swordsman
Master smith Tactician Negotiator
Strongwilled Vast memory Botanist
Impervious Poison drinker Terrain master

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Equipment
After defining all of your character’s mechanical elements, you’ll
need to define or select their equipment. In short, equipment
provides Advantage Dice when relevant, and grants permission to
attempt certain actions that would otherwise be impossible.

More information about equipment can be found in V: Gameplay

on page XX.

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Starting Questions
When you’re creating your characters in conjunction with your
game concept, many groups find it helpful to answer a series of
(optional) starting questions that connect the characters to each
other and their immediate surroundings at the beginning of the
game.

These questions are typically drafted by the GM as appropriate for

your agreed upon game concept and color, but the entire group can
participate in coming up with some questions that each character
(or player) will answer individually. It is recommended that you
start off with five to ten questions that will help the group define
their company’s relationships to one another, local strongholds,
and NPCs in the region.

The questions need to be:

1. open ended
2. specific
3. evocative

Open ended questions lead to more interesting answers than “yes”

or “no.” Specific questions help frame the context with which the
character or player considers their answer. Evocative questions
help ground the players firmly into your group’s specific
interpretation of the Evergut.

For example, a group has decided that their company is comprised

of loyal citizens of a particular stronghold, and that the purpose of

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their pulls is to supply and bolster their hold’s influence in the

region. The GM comes up with the following questions:

1. Which of your surviving family members live in the

stronghold? (Minimum of one.)

2. How did you earn your stronghold leader’s trust?

3. What, as a player, do you think is your stronghold’s most

interesting or unique feature?

4. Where, as a character, is your favorite place to spend time

in your stronghold?

5. Who in your stronghold do you trust the most? (Outside of

family, preferably).

6. Who in your stronghold do you trust the least?

7. Something greatly upsetting happened between the local

nomads and your stronghold. What was it?

8. What was the single most valuable or unique piece of

salvage you’ve brought home?

9. Who was close to you that died? How?

10. What do you think is your stronghold’s greatest weakness?

Each of the players would be given these questions ahead of time,

or during the preliminary session when everybody is making their
characters (again, preferably together). They’re answered
individually and then given to the GM so that sufficient leads and
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local ties can be implemented for the company. To be clear, the

GM doesn’t come up with a bunch of answers first and let the
players pick - the unique responses from each of the players is
what creates some diversity and connection in the characters’ local
community.

Rather than questions that focus on a particular stronghold or

location, they can be geared toward other scavengers within the
company or NPCs outside of it. Alternatively, these questions can
be ignored during the first few sessions, and allowed to be asked
over time or at some point during the course of the campaign once
the characters have more of a chance to discover the specifics of
their characters.

This is a great place to establish the characters’ Bonds, which are

discussed in more detail in Chapter V: Gameplay.

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Advancement
You Advance once your character has completed three successful
pulls, each with a haul of greater value than the previous.

When you Advance

● Improve one Skill Rank
● Define one new Talent, or upgrade an existing Talent
● If you choose, swap out your Specialty
● If you choose, swap out one or both of your Instincts
○ Note your Instinct Maneuvers will change as well

A Skill Rank can’t be raised above Brilliant, and a Talent can’t be

upgraded to more than a +3AD bonus.

Character Creation Recap

Come up with a character concept that aligns with your group’s

game concept.

Think of your character’s Who (who they are, how they behave)
and What (what they do, what they’re good at, what they look
like, their function).

Create your character’s Background (their history and life) and

Foreground (recent activity right before the game starts).

Select two Instincts that drive your character, and one Instinct
Maneuver from each of the selected Instincts.

Choose your character’s array of Skills. Each Skill has a Rank,

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better Ranks mean dice rolled using that Skill are more likely to
succeed. The Ranks from worst to best are Rotten (6),
Acceptable (5+), Capable (4+), and Brilliant (3+).

Pick or define a Talent (a specific action your character excels

at).

Pick a Specialty (a certain role or group of actions your character

is especially good at).

Your group can answer a list of Starting Questions to help flesh

out a local setting and your characters’ connections to each
other.

Characters Advance once they’ve successfully completed three

progressively more valuable pulls.

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V: Gameplay
The majority of a character’s mechanical impact on the game is
through attempting Tasks. A Task occurs any time your character
attempts a difficult action that has a chance of failure and bears
significant narrative weight.

To attempt a Task, pick a relevant Skill and make a roll. You get
one die for free (the Base Die, 1BD), and can add any Advantage
Dice (AD) that are applicable to the roll.

For any Task you can spend Instinct Dice (ID) that add dice to
your roll. These dice come from your dice pool, and you can never
spend more dice than you have currently available. So, if you only
had 3 ID, you couldn’t spend 4 ID on your roll.

You can never spend more than 5 ID on a single roll, and never
roll more than 10D at once.

Every task has a Difficulty rated from 1 to 5 (such as Difficulty 3).

To overcome a Task, you have to roll successes equal to or greater
than its Difficulty.

Most Tasks are considered Short Tasks - or those that can only be
attempted and rolled for once. In some cases, a particular Task can
be completed incrementally - over time and with multiple rolls -
which is called a Long Task.

For Short Tasks - you have to roll equal to or greater successes

than its Difficulty in order to successfully overcome it. If you roll
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some successes, but fewer than the Difficulty, the GM can trigger
Complications, Consequences, or even Injuries (these are
described more later).

For Long Tasks - any successes reduce the Difficulty. For

example, your character rolls 3 successes against a Difficulty 4
Long Task, which is now a Difficulty 1 Long Task (4 - 3 = 1).

If you roll more successes than a Task’s Difficulty, the GM has the
option of applying bonus successes, which give additional benefits
in the context of the Task or Scene (hitting an extra target,
acquiring more loot, learning more information, succeeding in less
time, etc).

Tasks can have a Threshold, which reduces the amount of

successes you rolled. When you roll 3 successes against a Task
with Difficulty 3 Threshold 1, you wouldn’t overcome the Task.
One success is removed due to the Threshold 1, and the remaining
2 successes are less than the Difficulty 3 leftover.

Any time that a player rolls zero successes, the action triggers
Consequences.

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Scene Difficulty
GMs, you can combine an entire Scene’s worth of Tasks and
Enemies into a single, easy to track Scene Difficulty.

This Scene Difficulty is treated as a Long Task, where multiple

players can roll for their characters’ combined efforts in
overcoming the Scene.

Individual characters that roll zero successes still trigger

Consequences (detailed later). After every successful character
action that doesn’t overcome the Scene Difficulty triggers
Complications or Consequences as the GM sees fit and the
narrative demands.

To set a Scene Difficulty, the GM can take the average Difficulty

of a constituent Task within the Scene, and multiply it (roughly) by
either the number of players, or by the number of Tasks in the
Scene.

For example, an average Task within a particular Scene is

Difficulty 2. As there are four players, the GM sets the total Scene
to Difficulty 8 (2 x 4 = 8), in order to give each player an
opportunity to contribute.

Instead, the GM could have determined that there are roughly six
Tasks within the Scene as a whole, and therefore set a Scene
Difficulty 12 (2 x 6 = 12).

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Whatever makes the most sense in the context of the narrative, as

well as up to the judgment of the GM, is how Scene Difficulty
should be determined (with a rough range of Difficulty 2 and 20).

Note that a Scene should not have a multiplied Threshold or

Severity, and should use whatever the appropriate number would
be for a single Short Task of the same kind (so between 1 and 5).

If the GM wishes, each Scene can have multiple Difficulties based

upon the company’s approach. For example, a Scene might have
Difficulty 5 for the company to stealthily slip by a band of reavers,
Difficulty 10 to actually take the reavers head on in combat, or
Difficulty 15 to try to negotiate with the reavers on fair footing.

This is discussed in much greater detail both in this chapter and in

VI: Game Mastering.

Scene Difficulty combines all of the constituent Tasks of an

entire Scene into a single Difficulty generally between 2 and 20,
determined by multiplying the average Task by the number of
scavengers or Tasks in the Scene. Any successes reduce the
Difficulty as in a Long Task.

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Consequences
Consequences are developments that negatively impact the
characters, their current Task, or the Scene as a whole.
Consequences can be triggered when characters:

1. roll 0 successes, or
2. roll fewer successes than a Short Task’s Difficulty

The magnitude of the Consequences are based on the triggering

element’s Severity, which is generally equal to its Difficulty, but
the GM can change it as befitting of the context.

Consequences typically increase the current Task’s Difficulty,

Severity, or Threshold. They can create a new element that adds to
a Scene, including additional Short or Long Tasks, as well as
introduce new Enemies. They can remove helpful circumstances or
equipment from one or more characters, or even cause characters
to sustain Injuries.

Severity Consequence Effect

1 Trivial: failure or costly success
2 Minor: force new roll or Task failure
3 Moderate: increase Difficulty
4 Major: sustain Injury, degrade Skill
5 Critical: Injuries, unrecoverable failure

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Consequences are generally removed at the end of the current

Scene - barring the lingering effects of those Consequences (such
as Injuries). However, the GM might call that the current Task
ends and a new Task, or even a new Scene, begins.

Similarly, the Consequences can have fallout that make a

significant narrative impact on the character’s lives, reputation, or
fortunes.

Characters can try to remove Consequences by rolling a related

Short or Long Task (such as trying to treat a wound or stop a
mudslide), but will largely have to handle them through narrative
means and solve these new problems.

Consequences serve as one of the main tools of the GM to make

the characters’ lives more challenging and interesting.

GMs, don’t be afraid to leverage Consequences to punish the

characters, but never use them to impede gameplay. There’s plenty
of additional guidelines on this throughout this chapter and VI:
Gamemastering.

Consequences are triggered by rolling zero successes or failing

a Short Task. They negative impact the Scene - such as Injuring
characters, creating new Tasks, or escalating the situation
negatively.

Complications

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Complications are twists that make a Scene worse, but rarely if

ever directly impact the characters. They’re a less severe reaction
than Consequences, and should escalate the current tension and
obstacles rather than introduce new elements.

Complications can be triggered when:

1. a character’s action doesn’t overcome a Long Task, or

2. a character rolls more than 0 successes, but too few to
overcome a Short Task, or
3. all of the characters involved in a Scene have acted but not
yet overcome the Scene

For example, a character is attempting a Difficulty 5 Long Task,

rolls, and gets 3 Successes. Since they got above zero Successes,
they shouldn’t trigger Consequences, but they didn’t overcome the
Long Task either. As such, the GM punishes them with a new
Complication - in this case forcing a roll for a related but separate
Short Task.

And later, when the company is working together to move some

rubble - a Scene Difficulty 10 - each of the four characters rolls
and gets a total of seven successes. Since that isn’t enough to
overcome the Scene, a Complication occurs - one of the pulleys
that the company is using to lift an especially large rock breaks, the
rock falls, and echoes loudly throughout the area - potentially
alerting nearby reavers, hostile scavengers, or even packs of
cannibals.

Complications shouldn’t cause Injuries or direct setbacks for the

characters - those are reserved for Consequences. However,
Enemies or Tasks can suddenly change, escalate, or get an
opportunity to make an aggressive action.
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Complications escalate or twist a Scene or Task, but rarely

directly impact the scavengers. Complications are generally time
or in-game narrative sensitive, but can be triggered by poor rolls
or failed Tasks.

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Injuries
Injuries directly and negatively affect the character attempting a
Task - generally as a result of failing that Task or being hit with an
attack during combat.

Injuries can degrade the injured character’s relevant Skill Rank,

force them to roll with fewer dice (or up against additional
Threshold), or deny permission for certain actions. An Injury’s
negative effects last weeks equal to its Severity (an Injury 3 would
last three weeks, even after healed).

The more severe an Injury (based upon the Severity of the

triggering Task or attacking Enemy), the more dire its impact
should be upon the character. Injury 4 is considerably more painful
and life-threatening than Injury 1.

For example, a character falls down a steep decline, and takes

Injury 1 to their leg. The GM notes that the character must roll
with +1 Threshold (on top of the Task’s normal Threshold) when
attempting any action that uses that leg - such as running, lifting
heavy objects, climbing, or fighting.

Later, the character receives Injury 3 to the same leg, now

escalating the wound to Injury 4 (Injury 1 from before plus the new
Injury 3). The character loses permission to attempt any Task that
would require two legs, moves at a much slower pace, and can
hardly walk without assistance. This can translate to numerous
Threshold penalties depending on the circumstance.

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Certain alchemical remedies can be used to ignore the effects of an

Injury for a time - however they often come with unpleasant or
even debilitating side effects of their own. You can read more
about alchemy in the Alchemy section, on page XX.

To begin healing an Injury, you or an ally (the GM’s choice) must

succeed a Lore Task (such as for surgery or administering a
curative). GMs, you choose whether this is a Short or Long Task,
and determine if the character can treat themselves or not.

If the character wishes to try to fight through the pain - or simply

shrug it off - you must succeed on a Resolve Short Task. The
benefit of this fortitude is short lived however, typically ending at
the conclusion of the current Scene.

Once a character suffers a single or cumulative Injury 5, they’re

defeated. Once defeated, they can’t act. If not stabilized within a
couple minutes, they’ll die. Often, the GM can make an Injury 5
have permanent (although less punishing) effects.

For example, a character that sustains an Injury 5 to their arm

might lose the arm - and be forced to lose permission to attempt
two-handed Tasks, or always roll with Threshold with anything
impeded by having only one arm.

Characters sustain Injuries when taking damage in combat or

failing a potentially dangerous Task. They negatively impact the
character, such as providing additional Difficulty, Threshold, or
even blocking permission to attempt certain actions and Tasks.
Once a character has reached Injury 5, they are defeated and
possibly dying.

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Advantage
When attempting Tasks under favorable circumstances - such as
with the help of an ally, a useful piece of equipment, or with an
especially appropriate method - the GM can grant Advantage to
the roll.

The better the character has stacked the odds in their favor, the
more Advantage Dice (AD) the GM should grant. A typical
source of Advantage grants +1AD, however a single source can
provide as much as +3AD, while all sources of ADvantage can’t
add up to more than +5AD.

For example, a character exploring a region of ruins would be

granted +1AD when they refer to a highly detailed map made by
another company of scavengers. If the character was being guided
by an experienced scavenger who knew the area well, that could
even be up to +3AD of an advantage.

Equipment is one of the primary ways in which characters accrue

AD, as discussed in the Equipment section on page XX.

Characters can gain Advantage when attempting a Task in

favorable circumstances - such as great positioning, the proper
tool, or help from an ally - which grant up to 3 Advantage Dice
from a single source and a total combined 5 Advantage Dice
from all sources on a specific Task.

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Approaches
Most problems within the gut of the Beast can be solved in
numerous ways - diplomacy, stealth, straight out violence, or
tactical cunning. As such, a Task’s Difficulty, Severity, and
Threshold (DST) can vary greatly based upon the way the
scavengers approach the obstacle.

Generally different approaches are handled by different Skills, but

sometimes the way in which a character approaches overcoming a
Task - even within the same Skill - can modify its DST. If a
character is trying to gain access to a stronghold, they could sneak
their way in (Stealth), they could bash the door down (Might), they
could convince the guards to allow entry (Influence), or they could
create some calamity that forces the gates open (Cunning or Lore).
In each of these cases, the GM might assign different numeric
targets and reactions for the Task based on the character’s choices.

A character’s approach can also modify an Enemy’s capabilities -

modifying their Difficulty for different Skills or methods in which
the character is attempting to combat them. For example, a rival
scavenger might have a much higher intimidation Difficulty than
bribery Difficulty, even though both might be considered an
Influence Task.

Characters can change their approach in the middle of a Task or

Scene, such as realizing an enemy’s weakness or a more
appropriate method of overcoming an obstacle. GMs can alter the
Task in order to reflect the shift.

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Likewise, a character might come up with such a clever approach

for a Task that they circumvent parts or all of it entirely.
Kidnapping the reaver captain’s only son might make the
upcoming negotiation Task a moot point - as he’ll do anything to
keep his son alive.

The way a scavenger or company Approaches a Task can

positively or negatively impact its Difficulty, Severity, and
Threshold (DST). An especially clever method of attempting a
Task will have a lower DST than an especially foolish one.

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Instinct Dice
You can add up to 5 Instinct Dice (ID) to any roll. Instinct Dice
are stored in your dice pool, and you acquire them by acting
instinctively - completing Tasks and actions in such a way that
demonstrates your character’s natural impulses.

As a scavenger, you also gain ID when you:

1. discover clues that lead to a valuable haul

2. successfully complete a pull
3. barter your haul successfully

GMs, each time that a character acts instinctively - they should be

rewarded 2-5 ID. Each clue is worth approximately 1 ID, while
completing pulls and bartering hauls can be worth upwards of 5 or
even 10 ID, depending on the value and rarity of the haul itself.

Once you’ve spent ID from your dice pool, those ID are gone and
can’t be used again. You can never spend more ID than you have
available in your current pool, and you only acquire new ID at the
end of a current Scene (in the Conclusion step of a Scene’s
cadence).

Example Instinctive Actions

Curiosity
Exploring deeper despite danger, pressing on to learn the why of an
item, attitude, or opinion, seeking knowledge or understanding,
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attempting to learn secrets or hidden treasures, initiating actions -

even dangerous ones - simply to see what happens.

Fear
Turning back in the face of danger, hiding or avoiding conflict,
taking a longer but safer route, cutting your losses in order to
escape, fleeing or surrendering in combat, operating under
coercion or intimidation, abandoning or betraying others for self-
preservation.

Greed
Seeking out the most lucrative or rewarding actions and pulls,
working only for the promise of recompense, behaving selfishly,
excessive consumption, seeking hedonic pleasure, making unfair
demands, or doing things only in your own self interest.

Loyalty
Protecting your closest comrades or kin, doing things in the
interest of your company or stronghold or people, engaging in
collectivism or prejudice toward a group in which you’re not loyal
to, keeping oaths and promises, seeking out justice or vengeance
against those who have harmed the ones you care about.

Violence
Solving problems with violence or coercion, engaging in bloodlust
and battle, starting unnecessary fights, enjoying the thrill of the
hunt, training to be a better combatant or honing your skills as a
killer, seeking glory or respect through martial prowess, instilling
fear in others from the threat of your violence, or besting others in
feats of strength or cunning.

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Instinct Dice (ID) are stored in a player’s dice pool, and can be
spent to add dice to any roll. A maximum of 5 ID can be spent
on a single roll. Instinct Dice are gained when a character acts
Instinctively - in alignment with one (or both) of their two
Instincts: Curiosity, Fear, Greed, Loyalty, and Violence.

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Narrative Actions
At pivotal points in any tale, characters can take actions with
enormous gravity. These actions - called Narrative Actions - bear
such an impact on a story that they irrevocably change its course.

At any time during play, a character can either Succumb or

Transcend their Instincts.

Succumb to your Instincts

Your grace, sentience, and ability to compromise melts away from

the surge of feral instinct overwhelming your every thought and
action. You embody one of your two Instincts - behaving as a
paragon of its most basic and fundamental level.

When you Succumb, you temporarily lose control of your

character, and the GM describes how this animalistic action
overcomes the current Task or Scene. Doing this requires no roll or
expenditure of ID - it just happens.

Once it is resolved and concluded, you regain control of your

character again. However, you are now Ashamed, and can not
Advance until you have atoned for your actions.

GMs, discuss with the Succumbing player (out of character) about

what you both find to be fitting, primal actions. You should tailor
this to not only the specific character and the Instinct that they are

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Succumbing to, but also the game concept’s tone and the current
pace and arc of the narrative.

For example, a character that Succumbs to Violence would become

a monstrous killer, slaked in bloodlust and overwhelmed by the
primal need to kill everything in sight. The character might kill
their enemies, but also hurt or endanger their allies. Their actions
might be so distasteful or terrifying that their comrades no longer
wish to be around them, either out of disgust or fear.

Transcend your Instincts

You’ve managed to restrain your inner base desires, control your

thoughts and actions, and reach a place of spiritual and mental
enlightenment few of your fellow survivors will ever understand or
appreciate.

When you Transcend, you forego one of your two Instincts

completely, and overcome the current Task or Scene. You and the
GM work together to describe the exact details of how this occurs,
but no rolls or expenditure of ID are necessary.

Once you have Transcended an Instinct, it no longer exists as a

part of your character - you don’t gain Instinct Dice when acting
instinctively, and you can’t use its Instinct Maneuver. In order to
acquire a new Instinct (or restore your Transcended Instinct), you
must Advance. The GM can disallow certain Instincts (typically
the one you Transcended) if it makes sense in the context of the
story.

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For example, a character Transcends Loyalty, seeing that tribalism

and the narrow focus of clan and kin is stifling the growth of the
Swallowed Society. This character casts aside such closed-minded
Loyalty, and brokers a truce between several warring factions,
which now cautiously work together.

At any time befitting the narrative, a character can either

Succumb to or Transcend one of their Instincts. This
automatically ends the Task or Scene without the expenditure of
any dice or the need to roll.

Succumbing to an Instinct means that the player temporarily

loses control of their character, and the GM narrates how the
character resolves the situation as Instinctively as possible. At
the Scene’s conclusion the character becomes Ashamed.

Transcending an Instinct means the character no longer is

connected to or impacted by the chosen Instinct, and resolves the
Task in an antithetical way. This Instinct is no longer applicable
for Instinct Dice.

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Horror and Sickness

Scavengers face the incredibly lethal threats of Horror and
Sickness on a daily basis. Briefly: Horror is treated as a Short
Task, while Sickness is treated as an Enemy.

Horror

While everyone - even the bravest scavengers - feels fear, true

Horror can overwhelm the senses and cripple the stoutest will.

When characters are confronted with something that is truly

horrifying - such as witnessing a graphic part of the Beast’s
digestive system, a cannibals’ feast, or a group of bloodslicked
reavers charging over a hill - they very well might be overcome
with Horror.

To remain steadfast against the effects of Horror, a character can

roll a Resolve Short Task. Injuries or Consequence from a failed
Horror Task range from hesitation (Severity 1), impeded combat
prowess (Severity 2-3), all the way to full body paralysis or
uncontrollable flight (Severity 4-5).

Sickness

Sickness is handled like an Enemy (read more about Enemies in

the section below). Characters have to roll a Short Task against the

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Sickness’ Severity, and Suffer Injuries equal to the difference. You

defend by rolling Resolve (immune system fighting it off) or Lore
(the knowledge of how to make it go away).

Once the Sickness’ Difficulty is reduced to 0, it has been overcome

and the character is cured. Injuries sustained during this process
remain however, and some can even be permanent (just like
Injuries sustained in combat).

Alchemy and various concoctions stewed from the many foul

things living within the Belly serve as hit-or-miss treatments for
the innumerable ailments that fester within the Swallowed Folk.

The most common of these is bilelung - sustained from breathing

in the constantly toxic fumes within the belly of the Beast. Various
vapors, smokes, and liquids can be used to treat the symptoms of
bilelung (coughing up blood, extreme discomfort, fluid filling the
lungs, and eventually death), however most know that if they live
to their fourth or fifth decade, bilelung’s the way they’re likely to
go.

Characters can become stricken with Horror in truly horrific or

grotesque situations as the GM sees fit. It is treated like a
Resolve Short Task, with Consequences that can involve mental
Injuries up to full panic.

Similarly scavengers can fall to Sickness which is treated like an

Enemy.

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Frenzy Madness
No one who’s survived long in the Belly has abstained completely
from consuming beast flesh and beast blood. It is a simple and
unavoidable fact of life in the Evergut - you do what you have to in
order to survive, sometimes that means succumbing to eating the
foul essence of the Belly itself.

Sustained and consistent consumption of the Beast’s byproducts -

specifically chunks of its meat and pots of its blood - will slowly
corrupt the mind, removing one’s higher cognizance, inhibitions,
and civility. In essence, the more one imbibes, the more feral and
beast-like one becomes. This malady is known as frenzy madness.

If the scavengers eat or drink some of the Beast’s viscera, they

don’t need to be subjected to any mechanical punishment or Tasks.
However, if the character does so more than once or twice in a
given session, the GM can force the player to roll a Resolve as a
form of defend against the madness’ attack (essentially treated like
a Sickness or Enemy). The madness’ Severity goes up the more
flesh the character has consumed.

Characters take Injury (madness) equal to the difference of their

successes and the Severity of the Task (Katarod rolling two
successes on his Resolve against a Severity 3 madness attack
would sustain Injury (madness) 1). Once the character has
sustained Injury (madness) 5, they succumb completely to the
frenzy and permanently lose control of their character. For all
intents and purposes, their consciousness is gone and they are little
more than a rabid animal.

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Healing techniques, consuming “clean” water and food, expelling

the Beast’s viscera from the system, and simply rest can reduce the
madness (per GM discretion). Players are encouraged to roleplay
their characters’ descent into ferality as their mind descends deeper
into the frenzy.

Enemies
Enemies are just like Tasks - with a Difficulty, Severity, and
Threshold (DST).

Characters attack Enemies by rolling a relevant Skill:

- Coordination for ranged attacks (bows)

- Might for melee attacks (swords)
- Influence for mental attacks (intimidation)

This roll is compared to the Enemy’s Difficulty, with each success

lowering the Difficulty like a Long Task (a Difficulty 4 Enemy
suffering two successes from a character’s attack is now a
Difficulty 2 Enemy).

Characters defend against Enemy attacks by rolling a relevant

Skill:

- Awareness or Coordination for dodging attacks

- Might for blocking attacks
- Resolve for resisting mental or internal attacks

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This roll is compared to the Enemy’s attack Severity, with each

success lowering the Severity like a Short Task (a Severity 3
Enemy Attack would require 3 successes to defend).

Combat is discussed in greater detail in the Combat section on

page XX.

Sometimes an Enemy will attempt an action that isn’t an attack -

such as sneak by the characters, deceive them, or flee the scene. If
the characters don’t take any action to oppose this - the GM can
assume the enemy succeeds or fails as befitting the narrative and
their skillset.

However, if a scavenger does oppose an Enemy’s non-attack

action, the player rolls a relevant Skill to overcome the Enemy just
like a Task, considering the Enemy’s DST.

Such Tasks can create Consequences or Complications, but

typically relate more to what the Enemy was attempting to
accomplish creating disaster for the characters, rather than
anything that the characters did or didn’t do correctly.

Sometimes these Tasks can be used to modify another Task in a

sequence, or an upcoming battle. For example, an enemy that is
sneaking up on a character that has rolled an Awareness against,
but failed, means that the character hasn’t yet detected the Enemy -
and any of their attacks can be much more Severe.

Enemy Equipment

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Enemy equipment is assumed to be factored in to their Difficulty,

Severity, and Threshold. The GM doesn’t need to create a lot of
detail around an Enemy’s equipment - however using it for
inspiration when determining certain attack or defend approaches,
as well as the interplay of certain weapons and armors, can raise or
lower an enemy’s stats just like a Task.

Other than flavor and determining an appropriate approach, Enemy

equipment can be used as a cue for certain types of Injuries the
characters might sustain on the receiving end of their attacks -
hammers might break bones while swords can cause bleeding, and
so forth.

Detailing Enemies

The vast majority of Enemies scavengers encounter will be pretty

simple - Difficulty 1, Severity 1, Threshold 0. Some might even be
simpler than that - collecting an entire group of fodder into one
rough character blob that’s Difficulty 1, Severity 1, Threshold 0.

However, sometimes certain Enemies demand to be made more

unique - not only due to their impact on the narrative but also to
represent their training, expertise, and approach to conflict.

GMs, the simplest way to do this is to come up with the enemy’s

Difficulty, Severity, and Threshold (DST) for each type of action
that the Enemy is attempting, or for each approach the character
takes to counteract the Enemy’s actions.

For example, an assassin might be a D1 / S1 / T0 in straight up,

exposed combat, but could be D2 / S4 / T1 when fighting from

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stealth or in darkness. And transversely, a pitfighter could be D5 /

S3 / T1 when fighting in gladiatorial combat, but only serve up a
D2 / S1 / T0 challenge when fighting in a dark ruin.

There’s much more information about constructing Enemies in the

Creating NPCs section in VI: Game Mastering.

Enemies are treated just like Tasks - with their own DST,
modified by their equipment and approaches. Enemies can
joined together into a single group (such as a Long Task or
Scene Difficulty) or made into more granular - with each Skill or
specific action warranting its own DST.

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Combat
Combat combines Tasks and Enemies into a single Combat Scene.
As discussed in the Enemies section above - each enemy
combatant is treated similarly to a Task with a Difficulty, Severity,
and Threshold (DST).

Characters attack against an enemy’s Difficulty, with each success

reducing the remaining Difficulty. Characters defend against an
enemy’s Severity, with each success reducing the incoming
Severity of an Injury.

If a character defends equal to or greater than the enemy’s

Severity, the character doesn’t sustain an Injury. If the character
defends fewer than the enemy’s Severity, they sustain an Injury
equal to the difference.

For example, a character rolls Might to block an enemy’s spear

thrust. The enemy has Severity 3, and the character rolls 2
successes on their block. The character takes Injury 1 as they’re hit
by the enemy’s spear (3 - 2 = 1).

Additionally, if a character rolls zero successes on an attack or

defend, they can suffer Consequences in addition to any Injuries.
Consequences in combat can often be more combat related - such
as breaking equipment, getting into a disadvantaged position, or
triggering additional attacks from enemies.

Only players roll during Combat. Characters attack against an

enemy’s Difficulty, which is treated like a Long Task.
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Characters defend against an enemy’s Severity, with each attack

treated as a Short Task. The difference between the Severity
and the character’s successes is how much Injury is sustained.

Order of Action

Determining who acts when in combat is called Order of Action.

Simply put - combatants act in the way that makes the most sense
in context. The aggressor tends to attack first, and most large
battles are messy enough to where the order doesn’t matter a whole
lot.

That being said, if a character wants to act specifically before an

enemy (such as drawing a sword to defend themselves from a
surprise attack), the player can roll a Short Task befitting of the
enemy’s speed and other advantages (generally Awareness or
Cunning).

Equipment and weaponry that is better suited to the current fight -

including the weapon’s reach, its draw speed, its readiness, and the
battlefield’s overall shape and density - can provide +AD or
+Difficulty for the rolling character.

Combat is broken up into rounds - a complete cycle of all of the

combatants’ turns, actions - the specific actions and Tasks the
combatants attempt during their turn, and reactions - the things
combatants do in response to other combatants’ actions.

Characters are limited to one action per turn, and one turn per
round. Defending yourself and rolling for Order of Actions count
as reactions, which have no hard limit.
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GMs, make sure that every enemy gets a turn during the combat -
either after the players have gone, or interspersed as the narrative
demands. There’s more advice on this in V: Gamemastering.

Combatants’ Order of Actions is determined by the narrative

and what makes sense in that moment. Combat is broken up into
rounds, consisting of each combatants’ turn - again further
broken down into actions and reactions. Characters get one
action per turn, and an unlimited number of reactions (such as
defends) as necessary.

Range and Movement

Arguably the two most decisive factors in battle are the

combatant’s effective range and position. If a force can attack an
enemy at a range that it can’t counterattack - it is likely the
advantaged force will win the engagement. Similarly, a scavenger
with a spear is likely to stab a reaver in the gut before he can bring
his axe down in a lethal strike.

There are several ranges that combat operates in, from closest to
farthest:

Hand
When two combatants are within the width of a hand apart, are
engaged in grappling, or in very tightly confined spaces. Daggers
and shields excel in this range.

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Arm
When two combatants are within the length of an arm apart, are
engaged in non-polearm melee combat, or when in close but open
quarters. Swords and axes excel in this range.

Reach
When two combatants are within three paces of each other, are
engaged in polearm melee combat, or when in a small but open
arena. Spears and polearms excel in this range.

Near
When two combatants are within ten paces of each other, are
engaged in throwing or very close ranged combat, or when in a
moderate and open arena. Thrown weapons excel in this range.

Far
When two combatants are farther than ten paces apart, are engaged
in long-distance ranged combat, or when in a very open and broad
battlefield. Bows and crossbows excel in this range.

Movement
The majority of combats in Belly of the Beast will occur in melee
combat - that is Hand to Reach range. This is largely because of
the nature of battle within the Belly - innumerable passageways
and omnipresent darkness make seeing a distant target very
difficult.

In a typical small battlefield, the characters can move about freely

and abstractly, getting within their ideal range if they so choose. If
a particular enemy is a trained combatant and possesses a weapon
well suited to a particular range, the GM can force additional DST
upon a character fighting them within that range.
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Combat as Short Tasks

Scavengers - and the people they’re fighting - are rarely masters of

combat. Sometimes it makes more sense for a bloody engagement
to be a single Short Task, with one roll determining who wins and
loses, and what the damage is.

In this case, Combat as a Short Task would be treated like any

other Short Task - assigning a relevant DST while bearing in mind
the character’s approach and what they’re up against.

If a character rolled insufficient successes, that means that they

traded blows but came out victorious. If they rolled zero successes,
they lost the combat, and likely sustained Injuries. Of course
overcoming the Task’s DST results in the character winning
handily.

GMs can use this to make the nail-bitingly close combats feel
shorter and more visceral, shoving characters out of the way of
engaging in long and drawn out bloody battles.

Use your best judgment of when to utilize this technique - but

don’t overdo it or combat can become boring, repetitive, or overly
random.

Equipment

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There is combat equipment (weapons, armor, shields) and

noncombat equipment (tools, alchemy, gear). Equipment grants
both permission and Advantage based upon its Descriptors when
relevant.

Descriptors are simple words or phrases that give the GM and

players cues of how that equipment behaves, and what can happen
during ideal circumstances, or what can be suffered due to
Consequences.

Broad categories of equipment (such as swords or shields) make

use of the same Descriptors, but more specific pieces of equipment
can have more (and more granular) Descriptors. Below are broad
categories of equipment with their Descriptors.

Armor
- Permission: Resist (roll Resolve) attacks rather than Block
or Dodge

- Advantage when: a piece of armor is attacked by an

ineffective weapon type (such as a sword against plate)

- Special: Armor can be treated as Threshold for the

character, reducing an incoming Injury by 1

Shields
- Permission: Block (roll Might) ranged attacks, rather than
Dodge

- Advantage when: Blocking, disarming, or pushing

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- Special: Shields don’t need GM permission to be

sacrificed in order to avoid an attack’s Injury

Bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons

- Permission: Make ranged attacks

- Advantage when: Attacks at Near or Far range, disabling

enemy movement, hitting precise targets

Spears, polearms, and lances

- Permission: Make melee attacks at Reach range, penetrate
enemy armor

- Advantage when: Melee attacks in Reach range, tripping,

puncturing, or moving enemies

Swords, axes, and maces

- Permission: Make attacks against armored opponents

- Advantage when: Melee attacks in Arm range, disarming,

blocking, and counter-attacks

Daggers and small weapons

- Permission: Make attacks against armored opponents

- Advantage when: Melee attacks in close range, stealth,

concealment, grappling

Tools, kits, and noncombat gear

- Permission: Attempt Tasks that would normally be
impossible without the proper equipment

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- Advantage when: Completing Tasks that relate to the

equipment’s designed function

Visible wealth, jewelry, and totems

- Permission: Gain access to conversations, regions, or
strongholds that would otherwise be unavailable

- Advantage when: Leveraging your apparent wealth or

power through Influence Tasks or similar negotiations

Alchemy
- Permission: Gain temporary effects from its use or
consumption

- Examples:
- +1AD to Attacks, can’t roll Awareness
- +1AD to Resists, can’t roll Coordination
- Delay Injury 1, can’t roll Cunning
- See in darkness, sustain Injury 1
- +1AD to Awareness, sustain Injury 1
- Ignore Horror, can’t roll Lore
- Remove Sickness, can’t roll Might

All Alchemy should have both positive and negative effects, as

determined by the GM or the player creating the alchemical
compound. In general, it should logically follow what the
compound is made from, and how the character consumes it.

Most Alchemy’s duration is for the current Scene, however some

alchemical compounds (such as to Remove Sickness, can’t roll
Might) might last for several hours or even days.

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Generally, the more powerful the alchemical remedy, the shorter

its duration (for both positive and negative effects).

Crowbar

The single most common, and arguably important, piece of

equipment in any scavenger’s kit is the crowbar. Some people call
them trotterwrenches due to their resemblance to a pig’s foot, but
the good old fashioned iron lever with a hook on the end is
ubiquitous in packs and harnesses throughout the Evergut.

The crowbar has an endless number of uses and applications:

weapon, lever, wrench, brace, splint, bartering tool, sparker,
ramrod, jammer, on and on. Many scavengers develop a very
personal attachment to their crowbar, etching in decorations,
giving them names, and thinking it an ill omen if the device must
be sacrificed or lost to the Belly.

Mechanically, they can serve as melee weapons or tools in the list

above.

Carrying Equipment

Scavengers are always looking for the most efficient way to carry
the tools and gear that they need, but leave plenty of room for their
valuable hauls. Carrying equipment isn’t only a matter of weight,
but also its bulk and awkwardness. Carrying a longspear might be
worth carrying into battle - however it’s a long, cumbersome stick

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that’ll snag and smack on just about anything you encounter as a

scavenger.

Because of this, scavenger equipment is designed to be as compact

and light as possible. Those in your profession favor shorter and
lighter weapons that can not only be safely tucked away, but
grabbed with a single hand with precision and alacrity. Knives,
hatchets, bows, and javelins are the most prolific.

A character can only strap containers and packs to a few places on

their body without becoming encumbered:

Back
Most packs, haversacks, and out of the way mobile storage will be
placed on your back. You can fit a relatively large amount of
material on your back and still function absolutely normally.

Items and containers placed on your back can’t be accessed

quickly, but also don’t impede your movement or combat in any
way. Pulling items from your back take an action in combat, or a
few seconds outside of combat, and leave you vulnerable while
doing so.

Chest
Harnesses, vests, and slings often attach to your chest. You can’t
carry anything bulkier than small containers - map scrolls, daggers,
alchemical vials, etc - but you can carry a lot of them.

Items and containers placed on your chest can be accessed quickly,

such as amid combat (which doesn’t consume an action).

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Legs
Smaller straps, soft packs, and thin containers can be mounted to
the calves and thighs for minimal transportation - largely to store
weapons or tools, utility belts, and sheathes.

Your legs can hold a couple of small and light items, and they can
be accessed quickly and easily.

Hands
Once a scavenger’s back, chest, and legs are full of equipment (not
counting the items that they can wear, such as armor), they only
have their two remaining hands to carry things.

Each hand that is carrying an item (even a small item), causes the
character to suffer +1 Threshold for any noncombat rolls related
to that hand, and denies permission to roll against Tasks that
require two hands.

So, carrying a two-handed weapon, or a one-handed weapon and

shield, would preclude actions that required both hands (like
climbing), or +1 Threshold for actions that required only one hand
(like pulling a rope).

Characters can only hold one thing in each hand (so you can’t hold
a shield and a knife in the same hand, barring some exceptions that
the GM might find reasonable).

Encumbered
You are encumbered when you try to carry anything that is:

1. heavy enough that the GM reasons would require a Might

roll to lift and carry, or

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2. long, bulky, or awkward, or

3. requires more than one person to carry.

If you’re encumbered, all actions (including mental ones) operate

at a worse DST than normal - generally an increase in +1 to +3
Threshold, based on how straining the items are to carry. If you’re
wearing or carrying so much gear that it can become tangled on the
environment (such as straps, belts, and odd shaped items), the GM
can make it function as an enemy that can deal break damage to
your equipment.

This is not meant to be particularly granular or specific - but rather

to serve as a tool to force the characters into difficult decisions. Do
they want to carry an extra sword just in case, or do they want to
be able to carry another five pounds of loot?

Sacrificing Equipment

Characters can sacrifice equipment when logical and applicable in

the course of the narrative. A sacrificed piece of equipment is
destroyed, but the character doesn’t suffer any of the negative
Consequences or Injuries they normally would.

For example, a character rolled a Defend and failed - forcing the

GM to apply Consequences and Injury 2 against the character.
Instead, the character sacrifices their breastplate, and doesn’t suffer
the Injury. However, their breastplate is now destroyed, and they
no longer gain its benefits.

Other times a piece of equipment can be sacrificed to automatically

succeed at a Task - such as sacrificing a dagger by sticking it into a

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door’s mechanism, or a rucksack by hurtling it at and knocking an

enemy off of a ledge.

Sacrificing equipment is highly interpretive, and should be up for

discussion only when it makes sense in the context of what’s going
on in the game. Ultimately, it is up to the GM to make a final call.

Breaking Equipment

Sometimes equipment breaks. Nearly every piece of gear in Belly

of the Beast has been salvaged or scavenged, partially rotten or
rusted solid, reforged and rebroken half a dozen times before a
character gets their hands on it. As such, equipment is fragile and
easily falls apart.

Any time that a piece of equipment is being used in the course of a

Task (in which dice are being rolled), it has a chance to break. A
sword during an attack, a shield during a block, a climbing kit
while rappelling into a pit - all susceptible to their own fragility
and the constant, noxious, decaying fumes of the Beast’s stomach.

Whenever a character rolls 0 successes and earns Consequences -

the GM can choose to break the equipment being used in the Task
(generally considered Severity 1).

Whenever a character fails a Short Task and earns Consequences

or Complications - the GM can choose to break a piece of relevant
equipment.

Especially sturdy equipment modify these rules, bearing their own

amount of break damage that can be resisted, repaired, and

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tracked. In these cases, the Severity of the Consequence or

Complication can be used to deal break damage to the item.

For example, a character’s mace with sturdy 3 would require 3

break damage in order to break it. A simple Consequence with
Severity 1 would not be sufficient - however it would now cause
the mace to be rated as sturdy 2. If the character wished to have it
repaired, it could potentially be restored to sturdy 3.

Crafting Equipment

It’s a natural synergy to be a scavenger and a smith - you have

access to vast amounts of raw materials at your disposal, and if
you’re able to convert the often unusable scrap into something
valuable, you stand to make considerable gain.

If a character attempts to craft something, they need all of the base

materials or ingredients, the proper tools, and a suitable work
environment (such as a workbench, smelter, forge, so on). Once
the GM agrees that the character has all of this in place, the
character can roll a Task to craft equipment.

Making items from scratch is generally a Long Task, with

Complications resulting in lost materials or an inferior product, and
Consequences a complete wreck or more severe ramifications
(your shop burns down, for example).

Repairing or reworking an item (whether broken or not) is a Short

Task.

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Items take approximately one day of work per Difficulty to craft -

a Difficulty 3 Task to forge a sword would take three days to
make.

Value and Barter

Scavengers spend a lot of their time haggling, bartering, and
ascertaining the value of their salvaged goods. The economy - if
you can even call it that - in the Belly is incredibly mercurial and
chaotic, based upon the immediate and often desperate needs of the
traders.

In short, the value of an item is what someone is willing to trade

for it. GMs, that means that you can approach each barter or
exchange from your players’ scavengers to a trading NPC as
unique. However, there are some things that are in far greater
abundance within the Belly than others, and that creates a baseline
of worth.

Things that are useful are generally far more valuable than things
that are decorative - as such a block of untarnished iron would be
much more valuable than a similar block of gold. Even though the
gold could be plated onto other things, its relative softness makes it
almost unusable in the context of weapons, tools, or containers.

Similarly, things that can provide sustainable and nonperishable

practicality are the most valuable - watertight containers, weapons,
bolts of fabric, tools, potted plants and tubers, and especially
breedable hogs. Even though many hogs are butchered and eaten
in the Belly, the vast majority provide a far greater value in the

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combination of their blood and milk (commonly mixed into

bloodbutter), as well their sucklings.

Perishable goods are the next most valued, things like clean water,
grains, dried food, smoked meats, and various alchemical
components. These are often in large quantities in certain areas,
and all but bereft in others.

While the majority of merchants and traders in the Belly will

prefer to barter, scavengers have to pack and travel light. As such,
gold and silver coins minted by the swallowed nations have
become a more recently acceptable form of currency. Other goods
that are compact but valuable - fine leathers, bolts of good fabric,
and forged weapons - can serve as reliable trade fodder.

Many scavengers prefer to work out of a single area, or in

conjunction with a traveling nomadic group. This way they can
buy a stake in the stronghold, investing their hard-fought earnings
in their own structures, comforts, hogs, and potted plants.

When dealing in larger quantities or higher values, most traders

refer to things in terms of hogpounds - literally how many
equivalent pounds of a living pig the item is worth. For example,
good bronze is worth several hogpounds (one pound of bronze
would be worth several pounds of a live hog), while good
alchemical components might be worth many dozens of
hogpounds.

Wealth (Optional)

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Players have a tendency to track their wealth down to every knick

knack and rusty ingot. If your group is amenable to such
bookkeeping, go for it (it certainly adds a lot of immersion and
flavor, as your characters undoubtedly are counting every nugget).

If, however, such minutia bores the group - or the amount of stuff
that the characters accumulate becomes too great to track - the
group has the option to condense everything into an abstract
measure of Wealth. The more stuff you’ve acquired, the more
Wealthy you are.

Wealth is broken into four Wealth Ranks, which function

similarly to Skill Ranks:

Wealth Rank Succeeds On

Poor 6
Typical 5+
Comfortable 4+
Rich 3+

When you go to barter, haggle, or otherwise buy goods from

someone - you can roll a Wealth to see if you can successfully
afford and acquire it (remember, this is purely an abstraction to
expedite gameplay).

A Wealth roll - just like a Skill roll - always begins with one Base
die. You gain Advantage dice from possessing the Trader
Specialty, having rolled a successful Influence Task, or have other
circumstantial benefits (such as favors, kinship, or the promise of
completing a job).

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You only ever need one success to buy an item, and you only get
to roll once (until circumstances have changed, or you’ve
upgraded your Wealth Rank).

At each of the Wealth Ranks, characters are assumed to be able to

barter or buy common goods within that Rank without the need to
roll, so long as the selling party would have access to these items,
and the character can access their source of Wealth (such as
trading within an established Stronghold). Some quick examples:

Poor: low quality food, broken items, non-useful trinkets,

fragments and pieces of fabric or leather, rotten or long-dead
hogmeat, and similar things that a well off Stronghold would
consider trash or not worthy the weight of transporting.

Typical: everything above, basic food, simple containers, Evergut-

made items such as clay pottery or bone tools, simple raw
materials such as uncured leather or wool, fresh meat and the
occasional starch or fungus or insect.

Comfortable: everything above, good food, sturdy containers,

well made items from skilled Swallowed, the occasional metal
tool, bone or lamellar armor, live sucklings or the occasional
potted plant.

Rich: everything above, hearty food, well sealed and sturdy

containers, Eaten Age basic items, well forged metal tools and
simple weapons (axes, maces, spears, arrows), small amounts of
high-quality raw materials such as alchemical ingredients, cured
leather, iron ingots, as well as hogs and fresh tubers or vegetables.

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Scavengers are assumed to start at Poor or Typical Wealth Ranks

at the beginning of a game, unless your game concept would
suggest otherwise. The GM can reason when a character (or the
group as a whole) has earned enough barter to warrant an upgrade
to the next highest Wealth Rank - but using the three more
profitable pull rule (the same as earning an Advance) is a good
starting point.

For example, Katarod has returned to Nillox with a valuable haul,

and the GM reasons that the scavenger has gathered enough
supplies to bump from a Typical to a Comfortable Wealth Rank.
Katarod wants to go and speak to the stronghold’s alchemist to buy
some ingredients and concoctions.

Rather than discuss this transaction in character, rolling Influence,

using the Trader Specialty, and bartering physical items that the
player has tracked, Katarod opts to simply roll for Wealth. Since
his Wealth Rank is now Comfortable, he needs to roll a 4 or better.
And since he has the Trader Specialty, he gets to add +1AD to his
roll.

Katarod’s player rolls two dice: a 1 and a 4, granting him one

success - all that he needs in order to buy the alchemical remedies.
If he didn’t roll a success, the alchemist wouldn’t have agreed to
the terms, or Katarod wouldn’t be able to cover the price.

If a character fails a Wealth roll, they can elect to decrease one

rank and treat the roll as a success. This can’t be done any lower
than Poor, and has to make feasible sense in the game’s narrative
(Katarod at Comfortable couldn’t buy a full suit of plate armor,
regardless of how much of his Wealth he gave away).

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Favors
Sometimes there’s just no better way to negotiate a trade than in
the exchange of favors. Maybe you don’t have anything tangible
that they want, or maybe they have a skillset that’s more useful to
you than any physical wealth. In any case, characters often earn
and owe favors to NPCs.

While many strongholds and NPCs won’t want to deal in favors

for characters and scavengers that they don’t yet trust, the ones that
your company is involved with most frequently might shift from
typical bartering to an exchange in favors.

There’s three tiers of favors: minor, moderate, and major.

Minor
Something small or unimportant, a few hogpounds worth of value,
a simple errand, or some information that is helpful but not
dangerous or secret.

Moderate
The most common type of favor - one that assumes both parties
have something to gain and something to lose. They’ll help you out
of a dangerous spot, serve as backup in a fight, or give you some
much needed resources to stave off death or mayhem.

Major
Only the most critical and significant favors - someone owes you
an enormous debt, will stand beside you in a highly dangerous
battle, give up their last rations, even sacrifice themselves for you.
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Calling in Favors

Characters can call in a favor that’s owed to them, and can expect
the favor to actually benefit them as long as it’s possible. If the
company is stuck leagues away from the nearest stronghold,
there’s no way for them to communicate back to the stronghold’s
smith who owes them a favor.

If a character is calling in a favor outside of a Scene, the GM and

player can briefly discuss the parameters of the favor (in or out of
character), and move on with the narrative. No rolls are necessary
and the benefits should be largely circumstantial.

If a character is attempting to call in a favor during a Scene, the

favor can provide assistance in the form of +AD, lowering the
DST, or giving the characters some kind of tangible assistance
(reinforcements, better equipment, whatever).

Once a favor has been called in, it is considered spent and the NPC
doesn’t owe the character anything anymore.

The higher the tier favor, the bigger of a payoff the character can
expect. GMs, make sure that minor, moderate, and major favors
feel distinctly different from one another.

A minor favor can be expected to be repaid at the NPC’s

convenience - usually a few days or more. A moderate favor will
elicit a response or action pretty quickly, generally as soon as it is
painlessly feasible for the NPC. A major favor will trigger an

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immediate and significant response from the NPC, even if the NPC
is otherwise engaged.

Remember, the only way an NPC can know if a favor is being

called in is if the character is telling them as such - and then
plausibly be able to actually accommodate the ask. Sometimes the
NPC and characters might negotiate, and a Task might come up. In
this instance, someone with the Connections Specialty can skip it.

Owing Favors

Sometimes a character might make an exchange for something,

and owe a favor to an NPC. GMs should trigger these favors at
inopportune and painful times for the character - giving them a
tough choice between doing whatever the NPC asks, or ignoring
their request and risking their reputation.

Each time a character rejects an NPC’s attempt to call in a favor

now owes that NPC an additional favor of the same tier, or
escalates the existing favor to the next highest tier. If a character
rejects the same NPC three times, that NPC now holds a grudge
against the character.

NPCs with grudges are dangerous - as they can have an impact on

the way other NPCs treat the character and those they’re affiliated
with (often the company of other players’ scavengers). The nature
of the grudge and the way it manifests depends entirely on the
personality of the NPC (such as their Who, What, and Approach),
but also on the tier of the favors that were rejected.

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If a character rejects an NPC’s favor, they can roll an Influence to

reduce the sting. If the Short Task is successful against the NPC
(with higher tier favors requiring a higher Difficulty), the rejection
doesn’t count toward making the NPC hold a grudge.

Bonds
Scavengers can form bonds with those closest to them. Their
family, friends, clan, or members of their company can all be
subject to these strong relationship ties.

A scavenger can only have one bond at a time, generally in the

form of a single person (their husband) or place (their home).
Players should consider (and discuss with the GM) the
circumstances of this bond and how it came to be. Elaborate
backstories aren’t necessary, but making it specific and personal
will add that much more flavor to the scavenger’s life, and make it
more visceral and real for the player.

Once per session, a scavenger can make an action that is either

directly motivated by a bond, or in some way furthers their
relationship to the bonded, and earn Instinct Dice.

This action should be declared and explained amid the character’s

other actions in the Scene, and Instinct Dice are gained in the
resolution phase as normal.

For example, Katarod - despite his calloused grumbles otherwise -

has a deep affection for his brother Hynom. Hynom has an
impressive collection of books, and painstakingly cares for their

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decaying pages back at their stronghold. While out on a pull,

Katarod goes out of his way - despite danger and a small chance of
success - in order to retrieve a book lodged beneath a large pile of
rocks. Normally this wouldn’t fall within his Instincts, but it does
resolve his bond, and he’d get ID.

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VI: Game Mastering

The primary role of the Game Master (GM) is to guide the group
through collaborating on the story and playing the game.

The GM needs to facilitate the gameplay experience for the players

- acting as the source of their information and the interface for their
characters to interact with the narrative. Paying special attention to
what each player and their character wants, what their Instincts are,
and what kind of game concept everyone has agreed upon playing.

Belly of the Beast’s focus is on scavengers cunningly outwitting

other dangerous folk in a world so defined by its scarcity and
horror that there’s no escaping it. Tales of political intrigue or great
wars shouldn’t be at the forefront of the GM’s mind - but rather
how this group of gruff survivors can get their next profitable haul
and avoid getting eaten by a group of psychotic cannibals.

The GM is there to challenge the characters, to put obstacles in

their path, to make them question their Instincts, to make the
players feel connected with the world and empathize with the
Swallowed survivors. You’ll frame scenes and throttle the game’s
pace, you’ll define the characters’ enemies and their allies, you’ll
describe what they see and hear and taste and smell, and you’ll
primarily pull the players’ proactive desires to the forefront - all
while illustrating this morbid and dark world.

This chapter is a collection or rules and guidelines on how to do

just that - how to set Difficulties and define Tasks, how to gauge
when to end a Scene and when to call for rolls, and everything else
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that it takes to be a capable and competent GM for Belly of the

Beast.

One crucial thing to remember: your power as the GM is derived

strictly from the agreement and consent of your players. If you
abuse that power, you’ll find that it quickly evaporates.

Choosing a GM
If you’re reading this book - you’re likely the one going to be the
GM. That’s right, most of the people who got their hands on this
little tome are the ones that’ll pitch it to their friends. Don’t fret if
that’s the case - being a GM is arguably one of the most rewarding
and engaging experiences anyone can have while playing Belly of
the Beast, or any RPG (or even just in life!)

However, if you don’t want to GM, and someone else in your

group does - just allow the volunteer to take the helm. It’s pretty
common for a natural leader or storyteller to want to be the GM,
someone enamored with the setting or that gets a certain amount of
satisfaction from seeing the horror on their friends’ faces from a
particularly gruesome description. That’s perfectly fine, and you
should let that happen.

But really - just talk it out. Sit down (or hang out online or
something) and discuss who wants to GM or who the group thinks
should GM. If you’re tempted - go for it! Volunteer! Once
everyone gets used to Belly of the Beast, its common for a
“consistent” GM to become evident.

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If all else fails, it’s recommended to have a rotating GM. That’s

right, have one person (randomly selected) be the first GM for a
single session. Set up a quick couple of characters, and start in-
media-res right on the precipice of a pull. If after the session that
GM wants to continue, great, if not, rotate it to the next player.

The GM’s Role

The GM takes on many roles during a game. Generall your main
job is to facilitate the rules and gameplay experience for the player.
Sometimes, that means you’ll have to be a:

Judge
You’ll make decisions, set Difficulties, and determine outcomes of
successes and failures.

Mediator
Sometimes players will disagree. Your position of authority allows
you to serve as an arbitrator. Keep things civil and everyone
enjoying the game. Encourage group discussion and democracy, if
an agreement can’t be made.

Referee
Sometimes players try to break or manipulate the system or its
intended design (often unintentionally). You’ll need to keep an eye
on this and prevent it from happening - or at least bring it up for
next time.

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Narrator
You’re the main source of the players’ and characters’ information.
You’ll verbally describe the environment, the people, and the
actions taking place around the characters.

Creator
The entirety of the Belly isn’t detailed in this book - that means
that you’ll have to create all of the details, specific places, and
specific people that the characters deal with.

Actor
You’ll act out and speak in character for dozens if not hundreds of
NPCs, giving them life and personality.

Guide
You’ll reveal clues, information, and obstacles in front of the
characters - guiding them through the Belly. However, you’re not
there to shove them down a predetermined path, let the characters
explore and you are their knowledgeable guide to the world around
them.

GM Principles
As the GM, you’re in a position of authority - respect that, and
appreciate the trust that the players have vested in you to make
their game possible and engaging.

You’re not the players’ - or even the characters’ - enemy. Instead,

you’re their lantern - displaying the interesting people, places, and
things living beside them in the Hungry God. You don’t want them
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to fail for failure’s sake, but you don’t want to protect them from
failure either.

Be fair and logical in your decisions. Stay consistent with how you
approach things in the game, the players will adapt and learn your
style just as you will theirs. If you’re in the middle of an engaging
scene - make a ruling, even if you’re not sure it’s in the rules.

Admit your mistakes, but don’t let them impede or damage

gameplay. Make a decision and move on during the session, and
afterward say what you would have done differently, and why you
made that decision.

You shouldn’t give the characters (and more importantly the

players) everything that they want. This isn’t a game about people
enjoying their splendid lives - it’s about overcoming nearly
impossible odds bloody and filthy on the other side.

Always encourage player creativity - reward them for their

cleverness and their ability to empathize with their character.
Always ask them “yes but how” or “yes but why” rather than
simply saying “no.”

Ensure that all players are engaged, and that every character has
equal time in the spotlight. Different out of character personalities
tend to dominate a conversation - try to bring the quieter people
more to the forefront, asking them what their character does, or
thinks, or says.

GM Basics
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The majority of your time as the GM at the table will be spent

doing three things: describing stuff, making stuff up, and inspiring
the players to keep pressing on.

Description

The vast majority of your words will be spent on describing things.

Be clear and concise - give the players and their characters all of
the information that they need to know, interspersed with a few
brief details.

As the characters wish to more closely examine a certain element

in a location, delve more deeply into its description - capitalize on
all of the characters’ senses, consider their state of mind, their
weariness, and their interests.

Good description is brief and quickly paced, with enough flair to

firmly plant an unforgettable image in the players’ minds. You
want them enticed and wanting more - no need to beat them over
the head with paragraphs of prose.

Creation

After reading this book, you’ll have a sort of nebulous idea of what
it’s like to live inside of the World Eater. Your mind will contain
images that you think are appropriate - and those images will be
likely very different than what the characters see. And, they won’t
cover everything. There’ll be a lot of blanks, and that’s your job to
fill them in.
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You need to be a creator when thinking up all of the muck-covered

and bloody details of this swallowed society, how that guy smells
and what that woman’s teeth look like. You’ll need to create
specifics about cities, cultures, ruins, adversaries, and everything
else the company will encounter.

You get to decide how everything knits together. Is there a lake of

glowing acid over that next rib in the Belly? Is there a branching
series of tubes and caverns leading down into the darker depths? Is
there a band of cannibals waiting to ambush the company? You get
to create those variables, and decide.

But you don’t need to do it alone. If you’re stumped, ask questions.

Have the players collaborate. Roll on some random tables. Use
what you can to keep the narrative moving forward and the players
engaged.

Inspiration

Sure coming up with cool stuff and then describing it in detail is

fun for you as the GM - but you need to inspire the players to care
about this place. They need to feel what their characters feel, and
compelled to keep pressing on in the horrifying face of
enslavement or death or digestion.

You need to evoke an emotional, visceral response from them.

Make them mad, make them cry, build things for them to care
about and then take them away. Always hammer on their Instincts,
and make them question their decisions.

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Judgment
Arguably the most important factor of being a GM is the amount of
sway your judgment holds. That means that you have a lot of
responsibility - taking the actions and inputs from the characters,
translating them through the rules, and then judging their outcome.

Since Belly of the Beast is relatively light on rules, that means that
you’ll be doing a lot of judging - making rulings on what is going
on rather than referring to the book. You can always fall back on
the game’s core mechanic - set a Difficulty, have the players roll,
if they meet or beat it, they succeed, if not, bad stuff happens.

When making decisions, judge fairly and consistently. Don’t

harbor any favorites, or alter the state of the game for certain
players over others. Understand what the player’s trying to
accomplish - what their characters actual intent is - and make your
ruling from that perspective.

While you’re not here to punish players, they should fail, and
failure should hurt. But that hurt should complicate matters into a
more interesting narrative, it should translate those failures into
new opportunities and ways for the players to get engaged.

Creating Pulls
The pull is the quintessential quest for any scavenger. The
company learns about a region with potentially profitable ruins,
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they fight through muck and bile and cannibals on their way to get
there, they dig up the interesting bits, and if they find something
worth salvaging - they pull it.

A pull can be thought of as a story arc in the narrative: an

interesting journey that culminates in learning more about the
Belly, the Eaten Age, and the characters themselves. Pulls provide
the framework and the motive behind characters leaving the safety
of their strongholds and kinfolk - they’re driven by a need to get
new stuff in this scarce and horrible place.

As the GM, one of your main jobs is to prepare and create these
salvaging journeys. In short - the characters should learn about
potential pull sites easily and frequently, but getting to those sites
is the difficult part (and bringing the stuff back even harder!)

First of all, any pull has to contain a haul - the actual loot that’s
worth salvaging. Often these things would be little better than junk
and bare essentials in the Eaten Age, but now are worth their
weight in live hog (literally). This is a part of the pull that the GM
can have a lot of fun with - there might be rumors of a particularly
nice haul in a dangerous location, but there’s also a less profitable
haul in a less dangerous ruin. In either case, the characters’
information might be bad, or another group of scavengers got there
first - the possibilities are endless.

The Pull Cycle

There’s a self-sustaining pull cycle:

1. problem or scarcity (hook)

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2. potential solution (haul)

3. travel to
4. the pull itself
5. travel from
6. solve and barter

Along any of these steps the GM can introduce any number of

obstacles or impediments, twists or developments, battles or
environmental hazards.

In short, the GM should set up two or more potential pulls, lay out
a bunch of tools, paths, and levers for the characters to manipulate,
and then let them steer the action. Any time that something can go
wrong (such as Consequences or Complications) the GM should
make it so.

Clever scavengers are those that circumvent obstacles and combat

entirely - but sometimes the less clever, more daring scavengers
are the first to arrive on the site of the pull. That’s not for you to
decide - that’s for the players to learn in character (often the hard
way). Below are some more details on each step of the pull cycle.

Problem or Scarcity
The company discovers or realizes that there’s a problem - some
kind of scarcity exists, a stronghold needs more grain, a nomad
group has lost all their hogs, the scavengers themselves are out of
iron. Something’s gone wrong, and it can probably be solved
through a good pull.

Potential Solution
The scavengers either know, assume, or gain information about a
place that is likely to have the appropriate haul that they need to

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solve the problem. If the group has a typical “pulling ground” that
they visit frequently - the GM can introduce new problems and
developments as the World Eater shifts, or those within its innards
become more competitive or aware of the company’s actions.

In any case, the party knows roughly that there’s at least a chance
of some physical items that will solve the problem, and they either
stand to be helpful champions of the group in trouble, or to earn a
healthy profit. The point of Belly of the Beast isn’t to investigate
where things might be profitable and maybe located - it’s more
about actually getting it out of there alive.

Travel To
This stage is likely the longest, and the one in which the company
runs into the most problems. The dark, dank, and digestive
environment alone is dangerous, but coupled with the fact that
scavengers are targets for reavers and cannibals, as well as
strongholds or nomads trying to protect their turf, the company
will have their hands full trying not to die just on their way there.

Most scavengers operate in a relatively small area, going for pulls

that are only a few hours to maybe a few days away from wherever
they intend to sell the haul - but the chaotic nature of the Belly
makes it difficult to map out or predict with any real certainty.

Some scavenging companies skip the first two steps altogether, and
simply wander around (like nomads) looking for the best places to
attempt a pull. If that is the case, be sure to give them ample
opportunity to pursue what they wish - but after they’ve overcome
a significant number of obstacles and Tasks.

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The Pull Itself

This is generally the climax of the entire pull cycle. The characters
have located their potential haul, they’ve traveled through hell to
get there, and finally get set up and ready to dive into it. This part
can be relatively simple, or incredibly complex and challenging -
depending on the pull site itself, as well as how the characters
approach it (and what they’re looking for).

A company that’s trying to scavenge some heavy stones to be used

for building materials at a nearby stronghold won’t have too hard
of a time finding the stones, chipping them off, or even really
lifting and carrying the haul away. They might meet an opposing
force along the path, or uncover some alternate problem amid their
pull, but otherwise it is a pretty simple job.

On the other hand, a company looking for the fabled Scepter of

Queen Bruhmjek should have a devil of a time trying to locate it
within her swallowed castle (tilted at a precarious angle, of
course), and fight their way through deranged wild hogs, reavers,
or worse to get it.

Many of the strongholds, factions, or companies view certain pull

sites to be their territory, and new scavenging groups as thieves.
Some will demand tribute or a portion of the haul (generally at
least half), but others will flat out attack anyone they see who gets
too close.

Often, the characters will have to move stuff. That’s part of what
they’re good at, and what makes Specialties like Engineer
especially useful. For example, the company might find a heavy
stone granary that appears to be well sealed, and likely to contain
grain and other valuable resources. However, it’s buried under a
pile of rocks and old ruins, caked with gunk and Beast juice.
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The company could try to break into the granary itself, if they
could fit through all of the rubble and actually gain access to it -
but if not they’d have to physically move the things piled atop it.
This would make an excellent Scene Difficulty, allowing for the
company to work together and pool their expertise - with plenty of
room for error and danger (rocks falling, ropes snapping, sudden
reaver ambush, etc).

Eventually, the characters will either abandon the pull (and leave
their potential haul), or they’ll successfully retrieve what they’re
after. This should be a momentous occasion in the narrative, and
feel like a victory.

Travel From
There’s two primary ways to handle returning the haul back to the
company’s safe point. The first is to gloss over it quickly, perhaps
make it a single Task, and move on to the next interesting bit in the
narrative.

The second is to treat it with all of the same danger and difficulty
of the Travel To phase. How do they get back? How do they carry
their haul? How do they avoid getting attacked by reavers or rival
scavenger companies? All of this is compounded by the fact that
their movement is decelerated, their minds focused on trying to
protect their wares, and their hands are literally full.

When deciding what’s most appropriate, always defer to the

narrative. What makes the most sense in context? Are they just a
short distance away to the nearest stronghold in an area that’s
relatively safe? Or are they leagues and leagues away from even
the closest semblance of safety, with roving packs of reavers and
cannibals over every rib and artery?
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The next best way to decide is to go with the flow of what the
players want. If the pull itself was a massive ordeal that took a lot
out of them (both the players’ mental fortitude and the characters’
physical endurance), then you can shorten up the trip back.
However, if the pull went relatively smoothly - pour on some
obstacles and complications on their return home.

Solve and Barter

Finally, the company has returned to a point of light in the endless
dark guts. Here, they can solve whatever the triggering problem
was, barter their goods, and take a break from the exhausting job of
being a scavenger.

Sometimes, this phase can be just as dangerous (if not more so)
than any of the others during the pull. They might return to a
stronghold with hopes to sell their wares, only to find that it has
been taken over by a hostile faction who demands the haul for free.

In general, however, this part of the characters’ journey should be

relatively rewarding. As the GM, you want to create a positive
feedback loop that makes the characters seeking out new pulls all
the time, and so it’s generally recommended to make this transition
and conclusion of the pull sticky (they don’t get everything that
they want) but overall a benefit to the characters.

At the end of this phase, the group would discuss the overall value
of their haul, and if it was worth a mark on their advancement
tracker. After a bit of rest, the cycle repeats and they learn of a
new problem.

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Giving Instinct Dice

Without Instinct Dice (ID) - characters won’t survive very long.
ID are the primary source of a character’s competence, not their
base dice and not their advantage dice. How many ID players get is
up to you - so it is one of the main things that you need to keep
track of.

Remember, characters earn ID in the conclusion phase of a

Scene’s cadence. Not before, not during, but at the end of the
Scene. They can still spend ID during the Scene, but they can
never actually add them to their pool during the scene.

However, characters earn ID during a Scene. Their actions and the

process of overcoming a Task is what actually earns them ID. If
they act instinctively, they earn ID. If they don’t, they don’t.

When acting instinctively, characters should earn at least 3ID for

each such significant action. They can earn more, but shouldn’t
usually earn fewer than 3ID. In any given Scene, a character
should earn anywhere between 3-10ID, largely based on the
overall Difficulty of the Scene and the number of times they acted
instinctively.

As the GM, it isn’t your job to alter the game’s pace, or the DST of
any particular Scene, based on how many ID the characters
currently have. They generally have the option of fleeing, or
making a narrative action, and in that regard have something they
can fall back on if they’re really in trouble. Eventually, the
characters will learn what kind of challenges they can and can’t

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take on, as well as how many ID they typically need to hang on to

“just in case.”

However, if you do notice that your characters are having issues

overcoming most or all of the Tasks before them, examine the
group’s overall ID pools. Even remind them out of character the
ways in which they can acquire ID, and try to bring in more
elements of the narrative that will encourage those types of actions.

Optional Rule: ID limit

To amplify the fleeting nature of ID and the theme of oppressive

scarcity within the Belly, the characters can have an upper limit on
how many ID they can store in their dice pool.

Discuss this rule with your group, and only move forward with it if
everybody thinks it’ll be a fun addition to the game. To be
perfectly clear - it makes Belly of the Beast much more difficult,
and the characters more prone to suffering Consequences and
Injury (or even death.)

The easiest limit to remember is 10ID, however you can tailor that
to your game. The higher the limit, the less of an impact it makes
on gameplay. It’s not recommended to have a limit lower than 5ID,
as characters are very unlikely to survive any challenging Tasks or
Scenes.

Optional Rule: Auto Succumb

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Rather than set a hard limit of ID characters can store, the group
can discuss a number of dice which create a psychological or
primal tipping point, forcing the character to automatically
succumb to one of their two Instincts.

Automatically succumbing to an Instinct can only happen during a

Scene, and if a Scene concludes and grants enough ID to move one
or more characters over the limit, they’ll succumb when they and
the GM agree is thematically and narratively appropriate during
the next Scene.

For example, Katarod’s group thinks an auto-succumb limit of

15ID is appropriate for their game. Katarod acts Greedily (one of
his two Instincts) and gets a few ID, bringing his total to 16ID at
the end of the Scene. When they make it back to a stronghold, he
goes to negotiate the barter for the company’s haul.

The GM and Katarod’s player think it’ll be interesting if there’s an

argument, and Katarod suddenly (and unintentionally, in-character)
succumbs to Violence (his other Instinct) and breaks out into a
fight with the people he’s negotiating with, badly injuring one. Not
only is he Ashamed (as per normal for succumbing) but his group
is upset with him for creating a negative relationship with the
stronghold and their potential buyers.

Difficulty Scale
Setting a Task’s Difficulty, Severity, and Threshold (DST) is one
of your main functions as the GM. Make every DST too hard, and
your players will constantly suffer the Consequences. Too low, and

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they’ll breeze through everything and the tone of the game will
dramatically shift.

Single Tasks have a maximum Difficulty of 5, Severity of 5, and

Threshold of 5 (abbreviated D5/S5/T5). However, the
overwhelming majority of Tasks have a Difficulty of 1, Severity of
1, and Threshold of 0 (abbreviated D1/S1/T0). This type of Task is
called the default Task.

The GM should always make the DST transparent to the players.

They need to roughly know what they’re getting themselves into -
just as the characters would know based upon their extensive
experience as scavengers (and being already as tough as nails in
order to have survived this long in the Belly).

As the DST can change based upon the character’s approach, you
don’t need to break out every detail and possibility down for them.
Just give them a rough baseline DST for the most direct path, or
for a particular approach that the character is asking about. This
helps to prevent excess waste of ID, as well as better understanding
from the players’ side of the conversation.

Below is a more thorough examination of Difficulty, Severity, and

Threshold from the GM’s perspective.

Difficulty

This is how hard something is to overcome. The higher the

Difficulty, the more arduous of a Task it is, and the less likely the
characters can defeat it. A rough breakdown of typical Difficulties
in any given Belly of the Beast game:

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Difficulty % of Tasks
1 Common, easy, typical 50%
2 Average, requires effort 20%
3 Difficult, significant effort 15%
4 Rare and very challenging 10%
5 Incredibly hard and unlikely 5%

If you’re not sure how to set a Task’s Difficulty, it is a pretty safe

bet to just go with the default of D1. Keep in mind the difference
between a Short and Long Task as well - if the characters fail their
first roll on a Long Task, they only have to suffer Complications,
while failing on a Short Task metes Consequences (and maybe
Injury.)

If using Scene Difficulty, determine whatever the average Task

Difficulty would be within the Scene, and multiply it either by the
number of Tasks or the number of players. A Scene with a typical
Task of Difficulty 3 and four players would be Difficulty 12.

Severity

This is how much failing the Task will hurt. Complications,

Consequences, and Injuries are all based off of the Task’s Severity,
and the GM needs to be well aware of the ramifications of setting
too high or too low of a Severity for a given Task.

Severity % of Tasks
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1 Threatening 50%
2 Dangerous and noteworthy 20%
3 Potentially lethal and severe 15%
4 Very dangerous, best retreat 10%
5 Probably instant death 5%

Again, it is completely normal and safe to just go with Severity 1

in half (or more) of the Tasks and Enemies the scavengers face.
However, if you want to add some more bite to the challenges, and
really put some fear into the players, higher Severity will do the
trick.

If it makes sense for the players’ rolled successes to counteract the

Task’s Severity (such as the way enemy attacks are handled in
combat), you should allow it. While the character maybe didn’t
overcome the Short Task’s entire Difficulty, they managed to get a
few successes and so suffer less of a Consequence (due to reducing
the Severity) than someone who had rolled none.

Severity is not multiplied when incorporated into a Scene

Difficulty. Severity can never go above five, however the scale and
magnitude of the Severity can alter based upon the scale and
magnitude of the Task or Scene.

Threshold

Not every Task requires Threshold - in fact the majority don’t.

Threshold is an optional element to make a Task that has multiple

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layers or components, and one of those layers is especially

resistant or ablative.

Threshold serves sort of as the antithesis to a character’s dice -

removing successes from their roll before anything else is
compared. Something with Difficulty 1 Threshold 1 is
considerably more challenging than something with just Difficulty
1.

It is easiest to think of Threshold as a barrier that stops the

characters from directly overcoming a Task or Enemy’s Difficulty.

Threshold % of Tasks
1 Resistant and tough 10%
2 Well protected or stubborn 5%
3 Sturdy and ablative 3%
4 Practically infallible 1.5%
5 Nearly impossible 0.5%

Wait, but that doesn’t add up to 100%! That’s exactly right, only
about 20% of Tasks should even have a Threshold, and very very
few Tasks should have more than Threshold 3.

Tying DST together

So what does this all mean? Briefly, the higher something’s

Difficulty, the more the characters will have to work to overcome
it. The higher its Severity, the more their failures will hurt. And the

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higher its Threshold, the more resources and dice they’ll need to
expend to defeat it.

You don’t need to make a Task with each number of DST in

perfect lockstep - on the contrary, a great deal of fun and interest
can be had with a D1 / S4 / T0 assassin, or a D5 / S1 / T2 vault
door. In the end, the GM simply needs to bear in mind that the
higher each number of a DST is, the more it contributes to how
challenging a Task is overall.

Channeling Instincts
Curiosity, Fear, Greed, Loyalty, and Violence. Each of these five
Instincts define the characters’ behavior, what motivates them, and
what drives them to dig through the belly of the Beast. You need to
be aware of each of the characters’ Instincts, as well as encourage
them to channel and act upon those Instincts as often as possible.

Katador has the Greed and Violence Instincts. As his GM, you
should give him plenty of opportunities for Greed and Violence to
come up. Put him into negotiations, give him opportunities to
betray others for his own gain, throw battles at him, give him
obstacles that are easy to overcome with killing but would
otherwise be challenging.

It can get a bit daunting trying to remember each of your player

characters’ Instincts, so it helps to keep them present in your notes
(such as the handy GM Sheet included in the back of the book).
However, the very nature of being a scavenger in the Evergut will
illuminate and illustrate the character’s Instincts.

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Gently remind the players out of character, ask them things like
“What’re your character’s Instincts? Oh Curiosity? How would
they act with Curiosity in this scenario then?” Eventually, the
players will become more comfortable thinking through the lens of
their Instincts (the positive reinforcement of earning ID helps with
this), and you won’t need to pull it out of them so often or so
blatantly.

And you shouldn’t only spoonfeed the characters appropriate

instances of their Instincts either. Challenge their Instincts. Make
them see the ramifications of acting compulsively rather than
thinking things through, being patient, or compromising.

There should be a constant strain between the character’s primal,

feral needs, and the higher echelons of their psyche - honor, duty,
ethics, and so on. Give them tough choices, on one hand they can
act instinctively and get what they need right now, but on the other
hand if they do so they’re likely to make their situation worse
down the road.

Sure they can kill this merchant and take his wares, but now
they’re wanted by the stronghold and likely to be killed on sight.
Of course they can hold on to their clannish loyalty to their
kinfolk, fighting any strangers out of fear or misunderstanding - or
they can try to set aside those differences and come to an amicable
truce.

Ultimately half of the fun in playing Belly of the Beast is seeing

how far your character will go to sate their base needs, and how
much they’ll sacrifice to survive.

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Creating NPCs
One of the easiest ways to make a game exhilarating is to have
memorable NPCs that feel like real, believable characters. There’s
no greater window into a setting than interacting with its people,
and a company of scavengers is constantly going to be engaging
with others - whether nomadic tribesmen, fellow scavengers, cruel
reavers, or bloodthirsty cannibals.

Defining NPCs with clear motivations, noteworthy characteristics,

and a small amount of complexity will give your game an
enormous return on investment. If there is one thing to sit down
and put some preparation and thought into prior to playing a game
of Belly of the Beast - it’s in creating unique and flavorful NPCs.

Swallowed survivors are hesitant to engage in violence without

reason. To be perfectly clear - they are rational, self-preserving,
careful individuals. They’ve made it this far, and they don’t want
to throw their lives away on the off chance that they’re not quite as
quick or quite as ruthless as their enemy.

Because of this, most NPCs that the company comes across won’t
be direct antagonists - at least not from the start. Sure some will be,
and some need to be (like cannibals), but nearly everyone is a
potential neutral party open to negotiation.

As the GM, you’ll be creating the majority (if not all) of the NPCs
that the characters interact with. To keep things simple, there are
only four things that you need to remember when coming up with
an NPC:

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1. Name
2. Who
3. What
4. Approach

Name
Names are important. Not only are they important because they
can help to distinguish certain characters from others, but because
they help make them feel more real. An NPC named Brigol, well
described and articulated, will be easier to remember than “that
one guy with the limp.”

Come up with a list of names, a smattering of different cultures,

shortenings, and even random sounds. When you make an NPC -
even when improvising one off the cuff - write the name down.
Remember, everyone (even the cannibals) are breathing, thinking,
motivated people. They have desires, fears, hopes, and a story.

Who
Just like a player character, NPCs have a Who. Who are they?
What are they motivated by? What are their mannerisms? If
nothing else - think of what drives the NPC (Instincts come in
handy here), and think of one unique personality trait. That’s
generally enough to get you started, and you can develop the NPC
more as the characters interact with them more frequently.

What
What’s this NPC doing? What do they look like? What is their job
or role? What is one distinct, memorable, descriptive trait about
them? Do they stink? Are they tall? Do they have three bronze
teeth?

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Generally a single word or two is enough for a basic NPC, but

more significant characters can have as long of a What as you can
manage.

Approach
How do they handle conflict? How do they interact with the
characters? Are they deceitful, cowardly, brazen, cunning,
combative? This is especially important for hostile NPCs, as it can
illustrate a lot about their personality and capabilities without
having to make them speak or interact with the characters in any
other way.

An NPC leader of a nomadic group that takes the time to ensure

everybody has enough to eat, speaks quietly and politely with
passing groups, and doesn’t immediately lash out at groups of
scavengers or reavers has an entirely different approach than a
leader bent on violence and driven by paranoia.

Assigning NPC Difficulties

If you haven’t yet, first go and read the Enemy section in V:

Gameplay. In addition to that advice, determining an NPC’s DST
should come intuitively after creating their Who, What, and
Approach.

Think of the two or three most likely ways that the characters will
interact with this particular NPC, and jot down a quick note about
the potential for different DSTs. The shady trader at the stronghold
isn’t a fighter - but is an excellent negotiator. Therefore, her

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negotiation DST should be much more challenging than her not-

getting-stabbed-to-death DST.

It isn’t recommended to go into a lot of depth, with a full Who,

What, Approach, and several DSTs for each NPC. The vast
majority of background characters and group extras will be
nameless, statless blobs that exist only to add context and pad the
numbers. These can use the default D1/S1/T0 - just like a default
Task.

For NPCs that are most likely to be hostile to the characters, think
of their baseline DST, and make a note of an approach the
characters could take that would be highly effective, and one that
could be disastrous. A veteran hunter might have very keen senses,
and so landing a sneak attack might be harder than actually
fighting her fair and square.

Specific and/or abstract qualities that the NPC possesses can also
steer you toward making an appropriate DST. Measuring a reaver’s
loyalty might be different than her bravery, even though both
might be a DST that is opposed by an Influence Task. This is a
further refinement from the way in which the scavengers approach
the NPC (and the way the NPC approaches them), but can be
drilled down into as granular of elements as necessary or
evocative.

In other words, the GM can think about the complex and varied
sources of a particular NPC’s skillset and behavior, and assign a
DST as appropriate for any action or Task that the characters are
attempting, in that given moment, against that specific NPC.

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Fleshing Out Pulls and

Other Quests
When creating pulls (or non-pull related quests), it is often helpful
to consider the motivations of all of the people involved, what
potential wrinkles can be layered into the narrative, and how the
characters can make an impact. Thinking about why certain
scarcities exist or why certain NPCs ask for the characters’ help is
an excellent exercise to ground your narrative in the grim reality of
the Evergut.

To provide some quick structure around this concept, it is

recommended that you answer these questions:

1. What motivates the source? Where and how did they

receive their information?

2. What motivates the opponents? What do they know, and

how do they know it?

3. What motivates the characters to do this?

These questions are designed to give you (the GM) the necessary
information and layers for a fulfilling narrative, while giving the
players an interesting and complex hook that elicits proactivity
without forcing them down your predetermined plot. Players need
sufficient information, motivation, and understanding of any given
situation in order to pursue it - in other words, they need sufficient
hooks to be proactive.
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By answering these questions, you’ve had to think about the

relationships, the motives, and the short and long term changes
that’ll occur from the characters’ involvement (or lack thereof).
This will inform future decisions and will help prevent you from
having to improvise (or having flat, unmotivated NPCs) when the
players inevitably dig deeper.

Source, Opponents, Motivation

The source is the company’s source of information. Often an NPC,

item, or piece of information has come to them, serving as the
hook to begin this particular thread in the narrative. Why are they
sharing this information with the company? What motivates them
to do so? What is the origin of their information?

The opponents are those in the Evergut who oppose the

scavengers’ actions related to this quest. Sometimes this can be
something simple like a competing company that wants the same
haul, other times it can be an ally or clanmate that doesn’t believe
the quest serves their interests. What do these opponents know
about the characters’ quest, and what is their source of
information?

Finally, what motivates the characters to actually partake in this

quest or pull? Are they driven by their Instincts? Do they feel as if
they owe someone a favor? Is there a tangible reward involved?
What are the short and long term incentives for them?

Example of play
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Katarod’s company has finished trading their last haul at the

stronghold of Nillox, and have been resting there for the last
several sleeps. Hromb, Nillox’ recognized leader (and the source
in this case), comes to the company and requests they look for
military weapons, or raw materials that can be reforged into said
weapons (such as bronze ingots or similar).

In its simplest form this could be the scarcity or problem in the

normal pull cycle - but applying our questions above gives the
players a bit more context and texture with which to shape their
actions. Hromb wants to send Katarod on this pull for two reasons
(his motivation):

1. he distinctly dislikes Katarod and wants him out of his

stronghold

2. he fears Nillox will not have the military might to fight off
a direct attack without these weapons.

He claims that there is a sizeable amount of bronze in the nearby

Web Ruins, information acquired from other scavengers (a group
lead by a woman named Rolte) who traded with them a couple of
farrows ago. This would be the origin of the source’s information -
something that the characters may or may not learn.

The opponents in this instance are easy: there are three groups
who’d rather Katarod’s company not supply Nillox with these
weapons:

1. a group of Reavers led by the frenzy mad Viggot

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2. a nomadic clan, the Chuben, who skirmish off and on with

Nillox

3. that other group of scavengers (led by Rolte) who work the

Web and want to stake it as their own.

The Reavers and Chuben are both motivated by wishing to exert

their force over the region - Nillox will be all the more difficult to
conquer if they have superior weaponry. Viggot is driven by battle
lust and greed, while the Chuben are as afraid of Nillox as the
stronghold is afraid of the nomads.

Viggot has killed several other scavenging groups that have come
through the Web recently, and so knows first hand about the
bronze weapons in the area. Several Chuben herders have been
killed by the Reavers, bearing the marks of the new bronze
weaponry, and so know second hand that there is a new source of
bronze in the area.

Rolte and her company are the ones that started this whole mess, as
they initially discovered the cache of bronze (first hand
knowledge) and keep returning to it in the hopes of selling more
and more of it off. They don’t want Katarod to get it because they
directly oppose one another, and Rolte views the site as her own.

Finally, we need to determine what motivates Katarod and his

company. Katarod has the Greed and Violence Instincts - and so
the GM would be wise to placate those desires. Hromb, knowing
Katarod well enough to know what the man values, offers to outfit
him and his company with forged armor and weapons as payment.
So not only does Katarod earn something of value that he (nor
anyone in his company) can make themselves, but he also gets a
potent tool to mete out violence.
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Hromb gets what he wants, Katarod gets a reward beyond the

value of keeping the raw bronze, and they both form a mutually
beneficial partnership.

Through answering these questions, the GM has painted a much

more convoluted and locally deep scenario than simply “go and
fetch us some bronze,” and gives the players many more levers to
toggle in the narrative.

Expanding even further

To really emphasize a quest, the GM can create a list of secrets,

twists, or events that occur throughout its path. Of course, it is
recommended to add Consequences and Complications reactively
as characters make a mess of things - but adding some during the
planning stage of creating the pull or quest will give the GM more
opportunity for narrative depth, and more hooks to hang the
scavengers’ choices upon.

These twists shouldn’t be cruel or unnecessarily obfuscating - they

need to bolster the excitement around the quest and the players’
interest in their characters’ journey. Like any good session or arc,
the GM should know when to add some or take some away, and
always err on the side of favoring the characters’ actions and
players’ preferences.

For example, Katarod agrees to help Hromb for the promise of

making bronze breastplates for his company. They’re only able to
do this if Katarod gets the bronze and supplies it to their armorer.
Some potential twists that could complicate the scavengers’ lives:

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● The Chuben attack Nillox, making the territory a highly

dangerous war zone

● Rolte races Katarod to the haul and tries to move as much

of it as she can before he arrives

● Viggot and his Reavers wait for Katarod’s company to

enter the ruins, and then start collapsing its vertical layers
on top of them

● There actually isn’t any bronze left - it is all in the

possession of Rolte and Viggot

● The Chuben set up camp right outside of the Web, blocking

Katarod’s path to the pull site

● Viggot will attempt to recruit Katarod, offering him

weapons and spoils for helping to sack Nillox

● On their journey into the Web, the scavengers locate an

interesting item that could serve as the source for another
quest

In the end, what started out as a simple pull quickly expanded into
a multiple session quest with several overlapping layers and
threads to be pursued.

Using your answers

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The point of answering these questions is for the GM to develop

some consistency and depth in their pulls and quests, to spark ideas
for reactions and complications, to add multiple threads for future
narratives, and to give their NPCs realistic motivations and reasons
for their behavior.

These answers help drive play. The characters learn more of them
as they move through the quest, and are better able to understand
and predict the behavior of those involved (especially as their
motives are made clear). If Katarod knows that Hromb absolutely
hates him and his scavengers, perhaps he’ll be less likely to help
them. Perhaps he’ll even seek out Viggot, offer a truce, and try to
help the Reavers sack the ungrateful hold. These kinds of
realizations or discoveries can generate thoughtful actions and
unique approaches from the players - and should absolutely be
encouraged.

Not only will answering the questions help you, as the GM, to
behave in a more meaningful way (through the lens of your NPCs),
but it will help create natural and social guidelines for the
characters to behave, and overall make your game more immersive
and enjoyable.

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Meta Tasks
Scavengers are exceedingly influential within the Belly. They’re
connected to strongholds, clans, families, and other swallowed
survivors who desperately need them to succeed. The characters’
glorious victories and disheartening losses should have meaningful
ramifications not only for them, but for the swallowed society as a
whole.

The best way to create this type of impact in the narrative is

through the use of Meta Tasks. These Tasks exist at the highest
scale of gameplay, and serve as one of the GM’s mechanical
impetuses to frame factions, strongholds, and groups within the
Belly for reasons beyond whim or fiat.

Meta Tasks make use of constituent events, actions, Scenes, and

Tasks performed or completed by the company. Each of these
events has an impact on the Meta Task, which in turn has
(somewhat) predetermined Consequences, Complications, or
outcomes - which operate at a greater scale than their individual
parts.

Typical Meta Tasks have Difficulty, Severity, Threshold, triggers,

and countdowns just like Tasks and Hazards do. However, each of
these stats has a slightly different execution than in a normal Scene
or Task.

Creating a Meta Task

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To create a Meta Task, GMs need to recognize or create an

overarching event that can be influenced by the characters, and
then define its constituent events, their significance, and the
ramifications of failure.

In essence, start with the big idea first - win a war, make a salvage
zone safe, build a stronghold, stabilize a region - and then drill
down into the subsequent parts that will make that event occur or
change over time. Always try to view these events (both the high
level and the lower levels) from the lens of your group’s game
concept and how the players’ company will actually influence
them.

GMs, if your players are really into sharing narrative control and
want to have some authorship over your Evergut, you don’t need to
conceal or obfuscate the Meta Task or its constituent parts. If your
players want a more immersive, “in-character” type of experience,
you can keep the mechanical nitty gritty in your notes and only
bring it up when absolutely necessary. If you’re not sure what your
players prefer, just ask them at the onset of the game or during the
creation of your first Meta Task.

A typical Meta Task has three to five constituent events, but more
or less are certainly applicable (the more events, the more time and
energy it will take for the company to actually impact it, and the
more significant to your campaign it will be). Once you’ve defined
all of the working parts and how they connect to each other, you’ll
want to assign the numbers and specifics to each element. More
details on that in the next section.

Meta Task DST

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Meta Task Difficulty is usually rated between 1 and 5, but

campaign spanning or truly momentous Meta Tasks can be rated as
high as the GM wishes. The majority of Meta Tasks will have a
Difficulty around 3, as opposed to a normal Task’s average of 1.
The higher a Meta Task’s Difficulty, the more connected events
are necessarily to complete. In this way, Meta Task’s aren’t
dissimilar from Long Tasks.

Completing or overcoming constituent events determines if a Meta

Task’s Difficulty changes, just like successes or Consequences in a
Long Task. Often, there’ll be times when more than one approach
reveals multiple possible or relevant events - in which case it isn’t
necessary to overcome or even interact with every event to
complete the Meta Task.

If the company completes an event with an entirely favorable

outcome, the Meta Task’s Difficulty is reduced by the related
amount (usually 1-2, but more for very significant events). A
partially favorable outcome will lower the Meta Task’s Difficulty
and trigger some kind of Complication (the amount lowered can
either be equivalent to an entirely favorable outcome or less). An
unfavorable outcome triggers Consequences, and the Meta Task’s
Difficulty is not lowered.

Once a Meta Task’s Difficulty has been lowered to zero or less, it

is completed and the characters have made a significant impact
upon its outcome.

Meta Task Severity is simply how dire the Consequences and

Complications are that result from not overcoming the Meta Task
quickly enough or creating too many unfavorable outcomes during
the Meta Task. Meta Task Severity remains on the 1 to 5 scale, and
shouldn’t be used to deal damage directly to the characters (but it
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can “deal damage” directly to large scale character-loyal

institutions, strongholds, groups of NPCs, etc.)

Meta Task Threshold functions as a penalty to the amount its

Difficulty is lowered by a favorable event outcome. The Threshold
should never (well, rarely at least) be higher than the impact gained
from the least significant event. In other words, the Threshold
should hurt, but it shouldn’t invalidate any of the victories or major
successes that the company can achieve.

Like all Threshold, Meta Task Threshold can be removed or

circumvented if the scavengers tackle its source directly, or figure
out an approach that mitigates the Threshold’s impact.

Meta Task triggers and countdowns are just mechanical hooks

the GM can hang other events, Complications, or Consequences on
- and function almost identically as they do in Hazards.

Triggers are generally related to a small but significant event

occurring - angering the local stronghold’s leader, agreeing to a
particular contract, killing the son of a Reaver, etc - that otherwise
wouldn’t impact the main narrative or the Meta Task.

Countdowns shouldn’t necessarily be measured against a particular

unit of time (although they can), but rather a certain number of
events, Scenes, or play sessions. Like Triggers, when a countdown
runs low (or out) narrative things happen that impact the game.

Meta Task Consequences and

Complications

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GMs have to be more inventive than usual when generating

Consequences and Complications for their Meta Tasks. Think
logically about how different factions or entities would react
toward an unfavorable outcome the company created, and the
Scenes and Tasks that it would generate as a response.

That’s a vague way of saying that you have some author-like

narrative leeway and control, however it is recommended you plan
(or at least, loosely frame) what kind of negative repercussions can
occur directly or indirectly related to a particular Meta Task or
event.

Remember that Complications should always serve as a twist or

unforeseen development that doesn’t directly harm or hamper the
company. Complications are there to make things more interesting
and murky - a faction of cannibals that had agreed to give the
company safe passage has now changed their mind; the group of
merchants that were scheduled to meet and trade with the company
never show up; the supposedly easy-to-find salvage is now buried
under a pile of muck, and so on.

On the other hand, Consequences should be immediate, harsh, and

often violent reactions to some kind of failing on the company’s
part. Their home base gets raided by Reavers while they’re away;
the news is out and several companies of scavengers beat them to
the pull site; a friendly stronghold gets razed and its citizens killed
because the company didn’t warn them in time, etc.

The nature of the Complications and Consequences should always

tie into the Meta Task, the current narrative, and the Meta Task’s
Severity. Don’t generate cruel or random Consequences simply
because the company didn’t succeed at some errands - that will

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actually rob the narrative heft and importance of the characters’

choices and their impact on the Belly.

Example Meta Task

The Hrobogg and Vindalin strongholds are on the brink of war.
Both are well established military powers in the region, and while
small scale skirmishes can be good for the scavenging business, a
bloody war will result in fewer customers for the company - which
they want to avoid if at all possible.

The GM sets the Meta Task of Stop the War as Difficulty 5 (pretty
tough and long), Severity 3 (significant repercussions), Threshold
1 (a significant impediment), a trigger of any bloodshed between
the two strongholds, and a countdown of three sessions.

The Threshold is from the two Stronghold’s leaders currently in

power - they’ve hated each other for years. She defines a few loose
constituent events (see below), but leaves it flexible enough for the
players to come up with their own ideas:

● Supply a large amount of military equipment to both sides,

forcing both to back down out of mutual fear (Removes 1-3
Difficulty)

● Resolve the ill will between the stronghold leaders, or help

remove them from power (Removes the Threshold and 1
Difficulty)

● Force or otherwise broker a peace treaty (Removes 4

Difficulty)

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● Mitigate one or both of the stronghold’s needs:

○ Hrobogg has a lack of viable and fertile hogs, and

as such are relying on foraging and raiding more
than they wish (Removes 3 Difficulty)

○ Vindalin is in need of building supplies for

fortifications and structures, and are constantly
harried by Reavers (Removes 3 Difficulty)

If three sessions go by (the countdown) and the company has done

nothing to divert the conflict (maybe they decided to go on an
unrelated pull instead), the two strongholds will go to war with one
another. If while journeying between the two strongholds the party
comes across a quarrel between Vindalin and Hrobogg citizens,
and they’re unable to stop it from breaking out into violence, both
of there will be war (the trigger).

Maybe they’re only able to supply one of the strongholds and not
the other, in the hope that both will back down now that they are
no longer on equal footing. As a Complication for a partially
favorable outcome, the GM describes how the now more supplied
stronghold starts exerting its presence in the region, seizing land
from its neighbor (bloodlessly, so far). They know that if they
don’t stop something soon, it will result in war - and now more
than likely a massacre due to the mismatch in equipment and
resources.

And if the company ends up replacing both leaders and forcing the
new ones to make a peace treaty, they’ll temporarily enforce
amicable trade between the two strongholds. If for some reason the
company decided that after all, war was favorable, they could do

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things to instigate it (such as killing a citizen and blaming it on the

opposing stronghold.)

As you can see, there’s a ton of potential variation and an ever-

growing, ever-evolving narrative that can blossom out of this
simple Meta Task - even if the players choose to ignore it
completely.

When to use Meta Tasks

Any time the GM or the players want a sense of scale and narrative
impact beyond the characters is a perfect time to employ Meta
Tasks. GMs can start out small, making Meta Tasks with a small
DST and clear, black and white repercussions.

As the players and the GM get more familiar and comfortable

operating within a mechanical narrative, they can branch out and
use Meta Tasks more and more often, with greater respect to their
structure. On the other hand, it might become second nature for the
GM and part of how she preps a typical play session, and not have
to rely on these rules by the letter.

In any case, Meta Tasks are simply a tool to help provide a

framework for GMs and players to create a sense of connection
and organic change over time in the Belly.

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VII: Hungry God

The land was resplendent once; sprawling forests, massive ranges,
glittering coastlines. Hundreds of clans, nations, and empires
carved their homes from mountain and glen - living and killing and
loving beneath the sun-kissed boughs.

But that was a lifetime ago. For generations the survivors have
known nothing but sorrow. The Hungry God consumed all, leaving
the world as little more than a skinned carcass moaning to be put
out of its misery. Millions were swallowed during the Great
Devourer's gluttonous feast; and yet, humanity pressed on.

Humankind has managed to survive in the Evergut, scraping a

living from the squamous entrails of the Beast, salvaging what they
can of the Eaten Age, and putting past fears and prejudices aside in
order to ensure the future of their blood.

Yet every day is a challenge - and the Beast does not remain still.
Its hunger is infinite, and its consumption constant. GMs, you can
use certain events (be they random, player driven, or narrative
driven) to affect the current status of the Belly, and the types of
obstacles the characters might face as a result.

Hunger

The single most significant element of the Beast is its Hunger.

When the Beast gains Hunger, it resumes its neverending feast

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upon the land. And when its Hunger is abated, it is content to sit
for months or years slowly digesting through castles and
mountains and forests.

A company’s actions can have a major impact on the Beast’s

Hunger. Any large scale extractions, pulls, or movement of heavy
quantities of debris that prevent the Beast from digesting it
increases its Hunger. Breaking large pieces of debris loose and
sending it deeper into the Beast decreases its Hunger.

For example, Katarod’s company wants to accelerate the rate at

which the Beast is consuming a particular region, as the influx of
fresh trees and water is helpful to the scavengers. They go and
make several large pulls, blocking up passageways, and preventing
much of the debris from traveling (slowly) down the digestive tract
and deeper into the Belly. As it isn’t gaining nutrients from its
food, the Beast’s Hunger increases.

Later, Katarod and his crew want to stop the Beast from eating
anything until after they’re picked through the best and freshest
loot. They go deeper into the Belly and dislodge great quantities of
rock, mud, and other waste so as to fill up the Beast’s entrails with
otherwise undigested food, making its Hunger decline and desire to
eat stop.

Pain

While the Beast certainly doesn’t feel pity or remorse, it can feel
Pain. Despite many attempts, the Devourer can’t be killed, or even
seriously wounded. The united armies of a hundred kingdoms
stood before it, unleashing their greatest weapons and technology -

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with hardly any effect. They were eaten along with the rest of their
cities and the ground they stood upon.

However, the Swallowed know that the Beast can be hurt from
within, and while the injuries aren’t substantial or life-threatening
to the gluttonous creature, they can change its behavior and cause
it discomfort.

Scavengers can use this to their benefit, but more commonly

reavers and violent strongholds will attempt to elicit a reaction
from the Beast in order to endanger their enemies. The most
common of these is to simply hack, drill, and mine your way into
its flesh.

The first few layers are easily scraped away, however after several
feet the omnipotent creature’s guts begin to heal so rapidly that all
but the most dedicated organizations can hardly make a dent. Few
and far between are instances in which a hundred or more workers
make a concerted effort to damage a segment of the Beast’s
innards - and often the boiling hot blood and terribly deteriorative
fumes are enough to make the attempt not worth the effort.

Even such a small impact upon the Beast’s health can cause a
major reaction, forcing the Beast to roil and move violently,
regurgitate great quantities of half-digested waste, or feverishly
consume certain elements such as cooling clay or saltwater.

Sometimes external events, or large scale random shifts within the

Beast’s bowels can cause it Pain - more than one semi-permanent
stronghold has been dislodged in such a tumultuous location,
disappearing into the black depths of the Belly’s lowest regions.

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In general, scavengers want to prevent the Beast from experiencing

Pain, as it complicates their job. The more stable, calm, and happy
the Insatiable Demon is, the more reliably they can extract
valuable hauls.

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Hazards
The Evergut is saturated in danger, ensuring that only the most
cautious and careful scavengers survive more than their first
attempted pull.

The GM can use the naturally violent innards of the Beast as a

series of Hazards - environmental Tasks, Enemies, and Scenes
combined into one nasty package. Rather than simply reacting to
whatever the characters do or triggering off of Consequences,
Hazards can be proactive (just like enemies) and force the
scavengers to defend themselves against the crushing doom within
the Belly.

The most common form of Hazards are the Beast’s digestive

systems - various tentacles, acids, fluids, gases, slimes, mucks, and
other inner-musculature that causes scavengers to become stuck,
encased, drowned, asphyxiated, stabbed, mashed, chewed, or
otherwise killed. In general, avoiding a Hazard is the safest and
surest way to get through it - which GMs can use to leverage and
encourage careful and cautious play from the scavengers.

Just as likely, however, the GM is encouraged to place the most

valuable, rarest, and lucrative hauls in locations replete with
numerous hazards. Not only does this engender fun risk and
reward gameplay, but it makes perfect sense: the more dangerous
an area is to reach, the less likely other scavengers have gotten to it
yet - and the more likely there’ll still be plenty of valuable loot left
to plunder.

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Escalation
Hazards are constructed just like Enemies or other Tasks - with a
DST befitting their narrative impact and difficulty. However, what
makes Hazards unique is that they escalate when certain
conditions aren’t met. The more a hazard escalates, the more dire
things become for the scavengers caught within the hazard’s trap.

GMs can create Hazards in a series of layers, each either with a

countdown or a trigger for what causes the escalation. A general
Hazard will have two to three layers, a countdown of two rounds,
and a trigger of rolling Consequences. Each time the countdown is
depleted or the trigger occurs, the hazard escalates to the next layer
of difficulty.

Each layer is essentially a new Task or Enemy with its own DST,
while the earlier layers’ DST still remains. GMs using Scene
Difficulty can instead increase the overall Difficulty, or have the
earlier layers count as Threshold for the rest of the Scene.

If a character rolls more successes than necessary to overcome an

earlier layer or element of the Hazard, these successes should carry
forward to the next layers as well.

Hazards in Play
Katarod has decided to attempt to submerge himself in some
aqueous and suspicious fluid in order to get through a harrowing
pass. The fluid is in a dark recess of the Beast’s body, but Katarod
is willing to risk it to get to the other side.

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Moving through this tract of fluid and undulating meat is a

Hazard, with three layers, and a countdown of one round per layer
(the GM has quickly decided upon this as the narrative demands).

The first layer is a Long Resolve Task with Difficulty 3, Severity 2

(Katarod has to hold his breath). He rolls, and gets two successes
(bringing this particular layer of the Hazard to Difficulty 1). The
GM describes how the sides begin to move and roil violently, and
the acidic nature of the fluid begins to burn at Katarod’s skin.
Since he didn’t overcome the Difficulty, he needs to roll another
Resolve to defend himself against the Severity 2 attack.

Katarod rolls Resolve, and gets 1 success - suffering Injury 1 from

the acid and the moving organs. That concludes the first round, and
since Katarod has not fully completed the Long Task of the Hazard
(he still has 1 Difficulty remaining on the first layer) the GM
escalates the situation - springing the second layer of the Hazard.

The second and new layer is that the passage begins to seal up,
pressing tightly on Katarod’s body as he swims through it,
crushing him and pressing more of the acidic juices against him.
This is a new Long Might Task of Difficulty 2, Severity 2. This
stacks with the former Long Resolve Task (now Difficulty 1).
Katarod rolls his Resolve, getting 2 successes - enough to complete
the first layer and get his head above water, and one of the
successes carries forward into the next Might Task. He still has to
see if he can push through the crushing flow of the tube or not - so
rolls his Might (now against the Long Might Task of Difficulty 1).

He gets zero successes - triggering Consequences. In this case, the

GM sets the Consequence to immediately taking damage from this
Task (Severity 2) as well as escalating to the third and final layer

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of the hazard - a ring of bony outcroppings that begin gnashing and

chomping down on the scavenger’s body.

While his head is above water and isn’t in danger of immediately

drowning, he doesn’t want to suffer more damage than he has to.
He decides to sacrifice some of his equipment in order to lessen
the blow - removing the incoming 2 Injury to only 1 Injury,
bringing his total to Injury 2 (one from before, and one new
Injury). He wedges a piece of his armor in the gullet, preventing
himself from being totally crushed - but loses that armor from here
on.

This third layer is treated like an enemy, with Difficulty 1 to

defeat, Severity 1, Threshold 1 while still affected by the second
layer of the hazard. The third round starts, and Katarod rolls Might
in an attempt to surpass the second squeezing layer of the hazard -
getting four successes. Not only is that enough to overcome the
Difficulty 2 of the second layer, but also to carry forward and
overcome the third and final layer of the hazard.

With several plunging strikes, he stabs up into the fleshy tube and
hacks at the bony outcropping, causing it to recoil away in pain as
he pushes his way through. He emerges on the other side sizzling
and bloody, with one fewer piece of armor, but alive.

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Environments
Scavengers aren’t literally stuck within a stomach - at least not in
the traditional sense of the organ. The Beast is simultaneously
much more complex and much simpler than creatures of the
surface realm, as it is utterly alien and incomprehensibly large.

The Swallowed don’t constantly wade through knee deep stomach

juices (although they certainly do at times), nor do they have to
contend with semi-digested refuse and excrement. Instead, the
Belly is full of bizarre and unique environments, many of which
aren’t impossible to imagine within the subterranean recesses or
dense swamps of the Earth.

Below are some examples of different types of hostile

environments the scavengers might find themselves within, what
kind of mechanical modifiers they pose, and some ideas for Tasks
the company might face.

Bony Crags
A scrambled maze of jagged ridges, bone outcroppings, rough
rocks, plaque-filled crystals, and tooth like protrusions have
stacked atop one another to form a rocky, highlands-esque terrain.
While drier than many regions of the Belly, these crags are a
nightmare to walk through, twisting ankle, stabbing foot, and
slicing those unlucky enough to trip and try to catch themselves.

Those learned in surface terrain equate these crags to the volcanic

headlands before more volatile mountain ranges, or the high
deserts found in the shadows of the highest peaks.
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Tasks: Cunning to navigate, Might to climb, Coordination to

remain surefooted, Resolve to ignore the pain and infection of a
thousand cuts and scrapes, Lore to find food or water or a level
resting place.

Modifiers: Any failed physical or combat Tasks which might

result in the scavenger falling or hitting the ground should deal
additional +Severity.

Mutated Jungles
Decades after the Beast began consuming the vast forests and
woodlands of the realm, many species of trees, vines, shrubs, and
ferns have adapted to live in small pockets within the harsh climate
of the Belly. Such jungles are found most often in bioluminescent
regions - typically ribward cracks in the Beastflesh.

Blood red, dark purple, and deep blue plants dominate these dense
thickets, all groping and reaching for the best lightsource they can
find. Many plants have become carnivorous, suckling off of the
Beast’s own blood, or those of unwary passersby.

Tasks: Stealth to go by undisturbed, Lore to avoid certain

dangerous and poisonous plants, Cunning to navigate, Might to
hack through the tangles, Resolve to stave off exhaustion and
pollen-based poisons.

Modifiers: Moving through these jungles is much more difficult

than a surface forest, as it actively (albeit slowly) attempts to
ensnare and eat scavengers. It is much easier for enemies and
predators to hide, so Awareness rolls should have higher Difficulty
or Threshold.

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Sinkholes
Massive gaping sinkholes litter the Evergut, many of which are
over a league in diameter, and reach downward in unknown
depths. Whether through natural inner workings of the Beast, or by
some unknown calamitous injury it suffered, these sinkholes trap
and collect enormous amounts of the surface world, and are ripe
for scavenging hauls. Yet even the most bountiful are rarely worth
the danger.

Tasks: Awareness to not accidentally fall off of the black

precipice, Cunning to find a path down, Lore to set up temporary
hanging camps, Coordination to rappel down, Might to climb back
up, Resolve not to become stricken with Fear and panic.

Modifiers: These sinkholes are utterly dangerous, and falling into

them (either through accident, improper descent, or being knocked
into one during combat) will likely result in death, or at least a
dangerous increase in Severity. They also act as natural amplifiers
of sound, and can make climbing them with Stealth nearly
impossible. Bringing large hauls back up with any measure of
safety should have increased DST all around.

Claustrophobic Tubes
While much of the Belly is a series of cavernous chambers and
wide open expanses, other segments are densely packed walls and
passages filled with millions of tubes. Many are the width of an
arm or leg, but some are broad enough to walk through, while
others force a scavenger to squish themselves flat in order to crawl
through.

These tube-masses connect different chambers and organs to one

another, and stand as difficult chokepoints to reach new territory

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for companies and strongholds alike. What’s worse is that many of

these writhe and undulate, sometimes even constricting in a spasm
so tight that it can crush a hog into pulp.

Tasks: Awareness to find passages that are traversable,

Coordination to squirm through tighter spaces, Resolve to remain
calm and control breathing, Cunning to not become disoriented,
Might to fight off crushing spasms.

Modifiers: It is all but impossible to cooperate, communicate, or

fight in such confined spaces. More than one band of Reavers has
attacked a company that’s lodged within these tube walls, shooting
arrows and stabbing spears at the helpless scavengers. This makes
any reactive Task or roll operate at Threshold (such as a Dodge or
Block).

Sunken City
The first cities to fall had little time to prepare - they were the
richest, the most populated, the most elegant in their architecture.
It was these metropolises that drew the Beast’s hungry maw, and
now lie buried under decades of layered deluge. The Belly’s
tumultuous nature can upheave these great urban centers, churning
and spinning and mashing them as they are consumed.

Some of the greatest pull sites are these cities that have sunken
beneath mounds of dirt and clay and stone, or sit amongst partially-
healed Beastflesh, their secrets barely glimmering through the
darkness. Many are practically invisible, but can be discovered by
determined scavengers willing to descend deep enough.

Tasks: Lore to know about a particular city and its culture or

wealth, Coordination to move carefully through the ruins without
creating an avalanche, Might to climb and pick through the heavy
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rubble, Cunning to construct levers and pulleys and harnesses in

order to move sufficient materials, Awareness to search for the
greatest hauls and most lucrative neighborhoods.

Modifiers: Most of these cities have buildings which are largely

intact, but stacked precariously atop one another, wedged between
crevices, and stabilized with years of mud and refuse. This will
increase the Severity of any dislodging of material, falls, or
dropping materials. They’re incredibly difficult to navigate, and
should reflect as such for Awareness or Cunning rolls.

Creating Your Own

The Evergut is enormous - almost unimaginably huge. If you can
imagine a climate, ecology, or subregion that could feasibly exist
on Earth or in a cave, then it is feasible within the Belly.

You can start by applying a few basic principles to it, and work
from there. Think of an Earth or surface-like environment and then
twist it appropriately for the Evergut. Is it high and dry? Is it a
rainforest? Is it a series of ponds and lakes? A swamp?

Then begin to analyze and answer these questions:

● How did this place come to be?

● Is it largely from the surface, or is it a naturally occurring
phenomenon in the Evergut?
● How fresh or old is this place?
● Has it mutated from its surface form, and if so, how?
● What effect would an unlimited supply of water, energy,
and alien hyper-effluence have on such an environment?
● What kind of people can and do live there?
● What kind of creatures can and do live there?

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Escape
There isn’t a more unifying dream among the Swallowed than to
escape the omnipresent confines of the Evergut. Children hear the
stories of their ancestors living among the birds and the sun and the
sea, dreaming and hoping that they too someday can see the
beautiful and bountiful majesty of the surface.

Yet such is little more than fruitless hope, as proven by the

countless Swallowed who have attempted to escape from the
Beast’s gullet. As far as anyone knows, not a single survivor has
ever made it to the far tailward depths of the Beast - and many
learned scholars tell stories that the creature never left any waste or
refuse in its wake. Some believe that its bowels empty into Hell,
and therefore “passing through” the Evergut would lead to an even
more torturous existence.

Others have attempted to ascend headward, hoping to climb out of

the Hungry God’s throat and scramble through its massive,
gnashing teeth. Whether any have ever made it, nobody is sure.
There are tales of those who’ve succeeded, of course, but most
think of them as idle myth and legend, little more than children’s
sleeptime stories. Hope can get a scavenger killed, who agree it’s
best to ignore such myths.

GMs, if your players want to make an active effort (or even an

entire campaign) to escape the Belly, don’t simply state that it is
impossible. However, it is extremely improbable, as the Beast’s
sole function in its near-immortality is to keep things down and
brewing. Remember that its anatomy doesn’t match anything that

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we understand or adhere to on Earth, and doesn’t have to eject

refuse or breathe or do whatever else we think an animal should
do. It is a literal alien evolved to consume entire planets - it can
take whatever horrifying form you want.

If your group discusses this as part of the game concept phase (or it
comes up organically as a desire for the characters mid-campaign),
talk about it openly and freely. Belly of the Beast isn’t really
designed for characters to escape, but if that’s what the players
want to attempt to accomplish, there are plenty of pulls and quests
they’d have to go on in order to do so (perhaps they can find a
cache of gunpowder, or navigate through a portion of the Evergut
that leads to the outside, or find an eaten library that is full of
anatomical drawings of the Beast while the surface survivors still
had time to study it, etc.)

But, really, in the end, it’s likely that the scavengers will end up
dead like the rest of their Swallowed brethren.

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Tables and Seeds

Roll 2d6 and compare the results to the tables below.

Scarcity

11 All of the potable water has been spoiled

12 The nearest water source dried up
13 The crop yield is withered and dead
14 The harvested crops are deadly poisonous
15 All the nearby soil has soured with acid
16 The Belly’s movement destroyed the harvest
21 The hogs aren’t producing milk
22 The hogs aren’t producing young
23 The hogs are sick and feverish
24 The hogs are crazed and violent
25 The hogs’ meat is deadly poisonous
26 A passel of hogs is missing
31 No stone or boulders can be found
32 The last of the textiles is rotted through
33 The last of the glass and obsidian breaks

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34 The clay pits run dry and useless

35 The last of the metal is rusted or depleted
36 The last of the leather is stitched and used
41 Materials for a new stronghold
42 Large bones needed for a fortification
43 A flat and stable location for a new structure
44 A leader demands real wood for a throne
45 A single, large flagstone for a foundation
46 Metal hinges and nails for a stronghold gate
51 An armload of spidervein mushrooms
52 A bushel of Beastblood filled salamanders
53 The tails of frenzy cats
54 Crushed and purified bones of a cannibal
55 A pure copper ingot the size of a fist
56 Glassware, bottles, and containers
61 Bronze pure and large enough for weaponry
62 An iron anvil not ruined by rust
63 Hardwood or charcoal for a forge
64 Untainted steel of any size
65 Metal pliers with an intact screw
66 Sinews for bowstring

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Interesting Finds

11 A masterfully carved stone sword’s hilt

12 A crude painting of someone a PC recognizes
13 A watertight scroll case
14 Fragments of a highly detailed map
15 A bloodstained bone box
16 Rolls of waxed vellum and an inkpot
21 Dozens of perfect, head-sized, marble spheres
22 An intricately carved jade comb
23 A very well made wooden chest - empty
24 A massive, dried puddle of melted, rusted iron
25 Masks that appear to be made of skin and hair
26 A simple but well made board game set
31 Several hundred feet of empty stone pipes
32 A sack full of fine, powdered flour
33 A jug of excellent lantern oil
34 A delicious, expertly cooked pie - still warm
35 A beautiful parrot chirping in a fine cage
36 A satchel of sealed religious and historical texts
41 A length of rope made of a peculiar material

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42 Most of the components for a naval telescope

43 A fistful of smooth, reflective, magnetic stones
44 A small sewing kit with a few pieces missing
45 A carved smoking pipe and pouch of tobacco
46 A ring of various keys
51 A nearly ruined elegant blade bearing a sigil
52 An intact chandelier holding fresh candles
53 A graceful book written in a foreign language
54 A tiny bottle of exceedingly sticky glue
55 A human skull coated in shiny black lacquer
56 An empty but refillable hourglass
61 Half of a warship in surprisingly good shape
62 A horse’s entire block, tackle, and bridle
63 A palm-sized cube of metal that weighs 50 lbs
64 A glass case of finely preserved insects
65 A small bottle filled with various types of seeds
66 A musical horn made of an unknown material

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Unique People

11 Jorbah - massive, muscled, a self-proclaimed king, heavily tattooed

and mouth full of bronze teeth

12 Nhev - a cheerful and humorous woman known to hum lewd tunes

half to herself, one brown eye and one blue

13 Vurk - seedy, slight, sinister, half a tongue, mumbles, long gray hair,
infamous for his work with a knife

14 Fallet - tall, hard, and beautiful were her nose not cut off, she
intensely hates slavery (especially of children)

15 Gunthrel - doughy, old, feigns failing eyes and ears (but is actually
quite sharp), highly pious and honorable

16 Shahib - a wise and wily alchemist not above poisoning her enemies,
with a pitch-perfect voice and bald head

21 Mank - a cruel swineherd, booming laugh, fondness for mushrooms,

known to own and abuse slaves

22 Guptin - young adult, the leader of her clan, a highly skilled

diplomat and trader, intricate facial scarification

23 Hong - gangly, an impressive beard, large gap tooth, successful

scavenger that’s friendly to other companies

24 Olba - a strong matron, stern but kind, limps, takes in dozens of

orphans and raises them as her own clan

25 Harth - a one armed, one eyed former reaver turned weaponsmith,

rarely speaks, cuts deals for scavengers

26 Rahu - a young prodigy, genius, she has extensive knowledge of the

Eaten Age’s history, stutters, blue eyes

31 Poff - a chirurgeon with a wheezy laugh, enormous eyebrows, and a

taste for Beastblood whiskey

32 Yabriel - an impressively athletic woman, fabled warrior, apathetic

and cold hearted, renowned as a mercenary

33 Vrex - a papery thin man with watery eyes and open sores, he

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emotionally preaches of the Beast’s Godly power

34 Lam - a traveling merchant, witty, protected by her guard hogs,

trades in secrets, a pot belly from a love of beer

35 Pungit - most of his flesh was burned by acid, incredible sense of

smell, depressed, will help scavenge for barter

36 Shasar - the leader of a nomadic group of healers and chirurgeons,

exceedingly humble, kind, and graceful

41 Tonthik - an ancient, freakishly capable businessman, very wealthy,

manipulative, family died in the Eaten Age

42 Baoyu - a scavenger, mercenary, and hunter, dry sense of humor,

surprisingly small, has a pet falcon she loves

43 Gronn - has many wives and children that grow plants and trees in
backpacks full of dirt, rotund, hairy, glares

44 Yingeth - a brewer, innkeep, loves to gossip, always has dramatic

stories to tell, widowed to a dead scavenger

45 Howarm - a cowled and mysterious figure willing to trade rare

artifacts for secrets and legends of haul locations

46 Trutt - a bizarre woman (many would say insane) who has somehow
tamed and rides a horse-sized hog

51 Xinglo - a fanatic wiseman who commits ritualistic sacrifice to the

Beast, will pay well for intact human eyes

52 Arwhax - an infamous slaver, brutal, sharpened fangs, her slave-

army attacks other slave caravans and groups

53 Quinn - a beautiful young man, full of wistful sorrow, is a tormented

and talented sculptor who inspires many

54 Nibb - a famously talented mason, she travels between strongholds

to consult on construction, soft brown eyes

55 Pao - a reaver who captures beasts and warriors to be forced in the

fighting pits, cackling laugh, many piercings

56 Tuliette - an austere woman, teaches math and reading to anyone,

secretly loves dancing, used to be a cannibal

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61 Amit - a rude, passionate man, braided mustache, collector of spices,

has a strong distaste for scavengers

62 Gurhann - a queen, mother to many children, wife to many

husbands, rules her stronghold with an iron fist

63 Lupong - a man with bright blue skin, can see despite blindness, said
to be a sorcerer, speaks in bizarre riddles

64 Bibitia - a huntress that specializes in tracking and traps, often

travels with scavengers, shy, sweet, shares selflessly

65 Sestus - a learned warrior committed to bringing law to the Evergut,

meting out judgment one sentence at a time

66 Himna - a feral red haired girl who poisons the unsuspecting with
sleeping mushrooms in order to steal

Quick Culture Table

Roll 1d6 on each table below to mix and match a stronghold or

nomadic groups’ culture and traits.

Leadership
1 Hereditary chieftanism
2 Employment / slavery
3 Warrior elite
4 Direct democracy
5 Council of elders / experts / shamans
6 Communal guidelines and bylaws

Unique Physical Trait

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1 Facial scarification
2 Lifepath tattoos on arms and legs
3 Smooth bald heads
4 Lack of irises in the eyes
5 Six fingers on each hand
6 Engraving and/or sharpening of teeth

Unique Cultural Trait

1 Always travel in pairs or even-number clusters
2 Highly penitent, religious, prayerful
3 Sing group cultural myth-songs
4 Collect and keep items of a particular color
5 Worship a now-extinct creature
6 Bizarre or singular diet (only meat, only butter)

Unique Form of Dress

1 Tightly wrapped layers and bands of leather
2 Loose, heavy, thick woolen ponchos
3 Dye all fabrics a single bright color
4 Incorporation of bone and teeth into fabric
5 Scarves or wraps around head, neck, or face
6 Intricate bead work in all textiles

Scarcity or need
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1 Food or water
2 Weapons
3 Shelter
4 Medicine
5 Tools
6 Barter

Unique resource
1 The formula and method for cured steel
2 An extremely large and fertile hog
3 High-potency alchemy from the Eaten Age
4 Several sealed bolts of silk
5 An abundance of tools and unique technology
6 Several potted fruit trees

Approach
1 Cautious, defensive, distrusting
2 Methodical, careful, suspicious
3 Selfish, loyal, slow to trust
4 Tactical, pragmatic, contingent
5 Peaceful, amicable, trusting
6 Aggressive, bloodthirsty, conquering

Territory Control
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1 Highly nomadic with no consistent area

2 Nomadic with broad cyclical patterns
3 Semi-nomadic between a few locations
4 Temporary strongholds until resource depletion
5 Several small strongholds cooperating
6 One powerful and fortified stronghold

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Character Sheet
Character sheet pdf (alpha)

Quick Start Rules

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